- The Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) and the National Identification Registry (NIR) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to secure digital identity and enhance national security through biometric registration.
- This partnership, which aims to improve the country's digital infrastructure, focuses on SIM card registration to ensure that every mobile user has a verifiable government-issued identification.
- The registration process is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with a July 10, 2025 deadline for mobile subscribers who have not registered their SIM cards using a valid government-issued ID to have their service deactivated.
The project, which aims to register 3.5 million Liberians, will begin soon, with an initial phase of free registration and verification to encourage widespread public participation.
According to Abdullah L. Kamara, Acting Chairperson of the LTA, the authority can not achieve complete digital transformation without a fully functional database capable of safeguarding digital platforms and protecting subscribers from identity theft and other cybercrimes.
According to the LTA Regulations, all SIM card holders must register their SIM cards with their respective Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) using the unique NIR-issued identification cards. The agreement mandates that failure to comply within six months will lead to the deactivation of their SIM cards.
On top of this, the NIR has set up registration centres in every district across the country and in some townships. There are over 4 million SIM cards in use in Liberia, and the NIR has developed a centralised database with a capacity to store over 7 million entries.
The LTA will oversee compliance and conduct regular evaluations of the registration process, while the NIR will issue IDs and manage the verification platform.
This is not the country's first attempt to improve its SIM card registration system. A similar initiative in 2020 reportedly failed due to low enrolment in the NIR database and technical challenges.
In May 2024, the country launched a Digital Transformation Project to empower 10,000 young people with digital skills.
