Germany wants to ban anonymous SIM cards under new counter-terror measures

The German government has proposed a new package of anti-terror measures, which should, among other things, limit the sale of anonymous prepaid SIM cards. The country also wants to exchange more information with secret services of other countries.

Under the plans, it would no longer be possible to buy an anonymous prepaid SIM card with an identity document that does not also contain a full address, Der Spiegel reports. These types of SIM cards are currently still available in Germany. To achieve the ban, the government wants to impose an obligation on providers and traders to ask for such proof of identity when selling SIM cards.

In addition, security services must be given the authority to search the databases of providers with parts of names and other spellings of names. That would go wrong too often at the moment, because the services do not know the exact spelling of a name. The secret services must also be given more capacity and cooperate more with foreign secret services. This is despite the strong criticism leveled at the collaboration with the NSA, writes the site Heise.

At European level, there has been interest for some time in prepaid cards that are used for payment. These would pose a risk to the fight against terrorism. The European Commission is looking for a solution that would allow identification but not negatively affect the normal use of these cards.