SIM Card Blocked, Life Halted: Who Is Responsible for the Damages?

Melika says with distress: “I worked very hard to set up this page, and now that it has reached 40,000 followers, I cannot deliver orders to customers on time, so followers have dropped and they call me a fraudster.”

One day the mobile phone stops working; No text messages are received, no calls are made, and the phone is not connected to the internet. At first glance, the incident looks like a technical malfunction; Maybe the bill has not been paid, maybe the SIM card is burnt or the network has a problem as usual. But when the owner of the line calls the operator's support, 72 hours after filing the complaint, he receives another answer: "Your line is "blocked" and follow up the matter with the prosecutor's office" and going through dozens of other processes that are needed to get the answer back to the blocked line.

According to Sharq, from here on, the story is no longer just about the blocking of a SIM card. In today's digital life, the mobile number is one of the keys to identify citizens; A number connected to a bank account, dynamic password SMS, payment applications, internet taxi, online shopping, credit and installments, social networks, user accounts and many government and judicial services. So when a SIM card is blocked, more than just calling and internet access can be lost: part of a person's access to their digital life.

The story of SIM card blocking was widely discussed in the reports at least since the summer of 1403. Since then, there have been reports of journalists, political and civic activists, and critics being cut off, but now more recent accounts show that the scope of this issue has reached ordinary people as well. From Instagram business owners to women who have had their SIM card blocked due to content published on social networks or not observing hijab.

At the beginning of Mehr 1405, reports were published about the blocking of SIM cards of a number of women in Isfahan due to not wearing a hijab and the condition of reconnecting the lines to the determination of the court case. Regardless of what content the owner of a line published, what coverage he had, or in general what path his case took, there is a more important question: what exactly does blocking a phone number in 1405 take away from a citizen?

A SIM card that is not just a few numbers

"Malika" is a girl who says that she has been standing in front of the Palace of Justice since early morning and before the start of working hours, but they do not allow her to enter to follow up on the case of her SIM card being blocked. He says that when he filed a complaint about the blocking of his SIM card in his mobile operator's system, after 72 hours they replied that he should follow up on the issue by calling a number related to the cyberspace deputy of the prosecutor's office.

As he explains, after this number, he is given other numbers to follow up on unblocking, all of which are a vicious circle and finally he did not get an answer. Melika says that she thought to herself that if she comes to the court in person, maybe she will get an answer sooner. He is so stressed that he doesn't know what to do. He has an Instagram page selling party wear and now all the orders have been left because his line is blocked and he can't even refund people's money.

He says sadly: "I worked very hard to launch this page until now it has reached 40,000 followers, but since I could not deliver the orders to the customers on time, the followers have decreased and they call me a fraud."

Melika emphasizes that the blocking of the SIM card is not just the failure of a line, but the stopping of her life; Because in addition to not being able to go to his user accounts and manage user orders, he can neither transfer money, nor pay installments, nor receive an SMS to renew his car insurance certificate, etc.

The experience of "Elnaz Mohammadi", a journalist, is another clear illustration of this story that a SIM card is not just a call line. His SIM card, which has been blocked for several months, has not only blocked the way to contact friends and news sources; He is involved in a chain issue that includes payment and credit to use online services. Elnaz Mohammadi's SIM card was in her father's name; The line he bought about 20 years ago. This issue had made it difficult for him to use some banking services in recent years; Because many services require a number that is in the person's own name.

But this issue was not a priority for him to name the line he has worked with for years; Because with this line, he used to do his daily work, from calling to online shopping, etc. But after this SIM card was blocked, the problem became more serious. He had credit and installment purchases in services such as Snap and Digipay, and he faced a problem to transfer these accesses to a new number. Finally, these fines for non-payment of installments in online platforms were collected one by one in his user account box.

Elnaz Mohammadi says that in one case, a settlement was made to pay the remaining debts on the credit platform, but it was not easy to regain access to credit. As a result, the blocking of a SIM card turned from a communication event into a financial and everyday problem. Elnaz says: "After filing a complaint with the mobile phone operator, I received a message to call the virtual deputy prosecutor. During the call to this deputy, they announced that they will contact me in a month. A month has now turned into more than two months and there has been no call to follow up on the complaint.

Mohammadi's experience shows how the mobile number has turned from a simple communication tool into a part of the access path to various services; The SIM card, which was once prepared for calls and text messages, today has become a part of the user identification process in banks, credit services, online shopping and various platforms. In such a situation, disconnecting a number can also affect a chain of accesses; Even if the person's main activity in any of these services has nothing to do with the reason for blocking the line. Of course, this story is not unique to him.

In August 1405, reports were published about the experience of people who faced problems in banking services, payment of installments and insurance after their SIM cards were blocked. In one of these cases, a user (Daniya Rad) said that he needed an SMS verification code to renew his car insurance, and the SIM card was blocked at the same stage. In such a situation, the main issue is no longer "not calling"; The problem is that a phone number has become the connection point of several services and its disconnection can affect a set of accesses at the same time.

Turning mobile number into the key to digital life

The experience of different people whose SIM cards have been blocked for various reasons, both in conversations with us and in expressing it on social networks, shows that the SIM card number is the key to entering the digital world, and when this key is lost, this door remains locked forever. When the mobile number has become one of the foundations of authentication in digital services, along with the national code and bank account, its disconnection can disable a chain of accesses; From banking services and online shopping to access to user accounts and public services.

According to Saeed Suzengar, an activist in the field of free access to the Internet and a security expert, today's issue is no longer just "digital identity" in its common sense; In the current architecture of the country's digital services, a person's identity is tied to a set of identifiers, the disconnection of one of which can disrupt a person's digital life.

Pointing to the change in the range of people whose SIM cards are blocked, Suzangar says that this is no longer limited to people who have problems with decision-makers due to political or media activities, and cases have also been raised about people with normal activities, including online business owners and online shops.

From his point of view, this issue increases the need to review the consequences of this type of blocking; Because a person may be just a normal user or a business owner, but by disconnecting his mobile number, he will face a set of digital limitations.

According to this security expert, the concept of digital identity had a different meaning in the past years. At one time, digital identity meant that a person's information was recorded in a system and its use could make doing some things faster or easier; As a result, a person could choose between using traditional authentication methods and digital tools.

But according to Suzangar, this situation has changed now. Today, a large part of digital services is dependent on a person's national code, mobile number and bank account, and these identifiers are no longer separate components of real life. They are connected to each other and to access many services, the person's identity is authenticated through this set. From this point of view, he does not consider SIM card blocking to be merely limiting a communication tool.

According to him, if a person is denied access to his mobile number, he may face difficulties in accessing the bank, online shopping, digital accounts and some public services. To describe the dimensions of this incident, he says: "A person whose SIM card is blocked may not have access to his bank account, may not be able to make online purchases, may not use some public services, and may not even communicate with others as before."

From Suzangar's point of view, a citizen should be able to use public services in any situation, and access to these services should not be tied to a single identifier that can be disconnected.

The issue from the point of view of cyber security does not end here. The dependence of various accounts and services on the mobile number has made this number a part of the authentication or account recovery path in many cases. Suzengar believes that when a person's SIM card is blocked, in addition to losing access to some services, the question should also be raised as to what will happen to the security of his digital accounts.

According to experts, in an architecture where the mobile number is one of the keys to accessing accounts, the loss of a person's control over this authentication path can also create a security issue: "Especially if a person depends on the same number to log in, recover accounts, or receive verification codes, cutting it off can make it difficult for him to manage the security of his accounts."

In the meantime, a simple solution such as getting a new SIM card is not necessarily available. According to Suzengar, in some cases, a person cannot even get another SIM card in his own name, and as a result, he may go for the SIM card of family members or other people. He mentions cases where even numbers belonging to family members and used by the blocked person have been restricted. In such a situation, the problem goes beyond a communication limitation and becomes a kind of forced dependence on the identity and tools of others. But the more important question is, is it basically a good architecture to depend a large part of digital services on a mobile number?

Suzanger believes that public service architecture should not be limited to a single path for authentication. According to him, in a suitable architecture, it should be possible to use different authentication methods; For example, a person can use the national card, its information or chip, a mobile number registered in his name or a valid user account in government systems in different situations. In such a model, the failure of one of the authentication paths should not mean the failure of the entire digital identity of the person.

But according to this expert, in the current structure, different departments are connected to each other and this dependency can create a breaking point; In the sense that disruption or limitation in one of the main components will show its effects in other parts as well. From his point of view, this issue is not only limited to mobile number. Centering information and services around identifiers such as national codes can also create vulnerabilities.

Suzengar believes that the more systems are connected to each other and the more information is linked in a centralized architecture, the scope of damage can be wider in case of information infiltration or leakage. In explaining this issue, he points to the experience of banking infrastructure and believes that excessive concentration of services and their dependence on common systems can reduce the resilience of the network. From his point of view, in decentralized architectures, the disruption of one component should not necessarily cause the failure of a large part of the service.

From a tool for intelligence to a tool for punishment

In the meantime, Suzangar also suggests a change of function: the infrastructure that was supposed to make the country faster and more efficient by digitizing services, can become a restrictive tool if it is used to deny people access to services. He says that if the digitization of services is supposed to reduce costs, increase speed, facilitate access and transparency, it should not result in a digital ID becoming a tool to exclude a person from a set of services.

According to him, when the mobile number has become a part of the infrastructure of access to services, blocking it without providing an alternative path can actually become a punitive tool; Especially if the person cannot prove his identity using another method and still have access to his digital services. At this point, the technical question is tied to the legal question: even if a person's access to his SIM card is to be limited, should his ownership and access to his identity and digital accounts also be lost? In the 21st century, a mobile number is much more than a communication tool.

According to Milad Nouri, an expert in the field of technology and cyber security, the mobile number in many services is part of the chain of authentication, logging in to the account, restoring access and receiving security warnings, and for this reason, losing it can put a person in a more vulnerable position.

From Nouri's point of view, one of the important points that should not be ignored in the discussion of SIM card blocking is the difference between "ownership" and "access": "SIM card blocking does not mean that one's bank account, e-mail or user account suddenly belongs to another person; But the person may lose the necessary means to prove ownership, log into the account, or regain access."

If two-step authentication for an email, social network, financial service or work account depends on SMS, the user may not be able to log in even with the correct password, he says. If this number is the only way to recover the account, it will be more difficult to restore access. According to this expert, SMS is not only used to log in or restore an account; In some services, SMS is also one of the channels for sending security alerts; Alerts about suspicious logins, password changes, or security settings changes. Therefore, a person whose SIM card is out of reach may not receive some of these warnings.

From this point of view, Nouri emphasizes that SIM card blocking does not necessarily mean account hacking, but it can weaken part of the user's control over their accounts, services and digital assets.

The need to change the use of numbers for authentication

Another issue that Nouri emphasizes is the security architecture of this dependency. When many independent services use a common agent for authentication, login, account recovery, or sending alerts, that same agent can become a "common point of failure." He uses a simple example to explain this situation: if we have only one key to open 10 different doors, that same key becomes the common failure point of all those doors. In the digital ecosystem, if a bank, government service, shopping platform, messenger, financial service, and business account all rely on a mobile number, the outage of that number can affect the user's access to all of them without any of these services being technically disrupted.

According to him, the problem is not only the possibility of the number being disconnected; The widespread dependence on SMS is also important from the point of view of cyber security. SMS and one-time password, if used as the sole means of authentication, are vulnerable to certain scenarios of phishing, credential theft, or malicious access to SMS. For this reason, new authentication architectures try to reduce reliance on SMS and use methods such as Passkey and security keys.

Nouri, of course, emphasizes that the use of SMS does not inherently mean an insecure design. The problem starts when the mobile number and SMS become the only way to log in, recover or prove account ownership. In this situation, the number being unavailable can cause disruption that extends beyond a specific account or service. From a light point of view, the mobile number should be one of the authentication factors, not the only way to prove account ownership.