Despite their political and ideological differences, nearly every political party agrees that crime and policing are key talking points ahead of next month’s landmark elections.

This is to be welcomed given the level of insecurity and fear South Africans experience daily.

Much of the conversation around policing is focused on the lack of adequate resources, policing staff and equipment. There is no working around these constraints; they must be addressed. There are, however, low-cost and immediate interventions we can implement to support the police.

A prime example is implementing the Rica Act effectively to uphold the spirit of this law. The legislation was brought into effect in 2009 to help ensure the traceability of users of telecommunications services and provide a regulatory framework within which such tracing can take place. Among the practices it introduced was the “Rica-ing” of Sim cards, a process by which retailers who sell Sim cards capture a buyer’s identity and address details to ensure that every Sim sold in South Africa can be traced to the correct user.

Linking a Sim to its owner requires that the unique identifiers visible on Sim cards are secure until revealed on registration to the buyer of the Sim. If instead the unique identifiers are exposed and can be registered in advance of the sale, the objective of the law – accurate traceability – is undermined. This is worse still if the Sim cards can be used, and then repackaged and sold on to an unsuspecting buyer, potentially linking them to crimes.

Loophole

The lack of adequate secure packaging and security of Sim cards is currently not addressed by Rica, and this loophole has serious implications for the safety of South Africans and the effectiveness of police investigations where tracing communications reliably is critical to solving cases. As politicians on the campaign trail decry the scourge of crime and promise citizens increased safety, we as voters should hold them to account for their failure to address the easy-to-fix holes in our regulatory system.

In addition to helping trace criminal activity to the perpetrators, improving Rica requirements – to insist on more secure Sim packaging – will also solve a category of fraud crime perpetrated by the cloning of Sim cards. This can be done using the exposed unique identifying information in naked or unpackaged cards. Preventing this with packaging can stop crime or fraud before it happens. Prevention should be the gold standard of law enforcement, rather than finding perpetrators afterwards.

Read: I bought a new Sim card that was already Rica’d by someone else

Interestingly, addressing this issue would contribute towards solving another major concern: grey-listing. South Africa was grey-listed in February 2023 after the Financial Action Task Force identified deficiencies in the country’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing safeguards. One of the key deficiencies is the inadequacy of our “know Your customer” or KYC protocols. Given that cellphones are an integral part of the financial system now, the failure to track mobile phone transactions contributes to the concerns about South Africa’s financial system. Fixing Rica, then, could play a small but important role in boosting our national economy.

This all begs the question: what is it that we can do to fix Rica?

Thankfully, the answer is relatively simple. We need to introduce provisions in the Rica Act that allow for better regulation of Sim card packaging and distribution. The act must empower the minister to set minimum standards for Sim card packaging, providing specifications that mobile network operators must abide by. One simple example is a requirement for all Sim card packaging to be tamperproof. This simple tweak in the legislation could make a significant difference, assisting law enforcement in the detection and investigation of crimes, while also protecting consumers from fraud.

There are no silver bullets to end crime or address limited state resources. Moreover, the proposed changes to Rica will only be effective if they are in fact enforced. Nevertheless, these realities should not prevent us from doing what we can to address a problem that contributes to poor policing and prosecutorial outcomes.

For this reason, we should all be raising this issue with the political parties that promise to tackle crime. With enough pressure from voters, we can put this easy win on the agenda of the lawmakers who represent us in parliament.