The Hon. Mujibur Rahman
Mujibur Rahman raised concerns about mobile phone number ownership, arguing that subscribers who pay for and use numbers for many years should have the right to own and transfer them rather than being forced to cancel and obtain new numbers. He urged the Government to introduce regulatory changes to recognize subscriber rights over mobile numbers. He also called for wider social dialogue on the proposed digital identity card before decisions are made.
Verbatim record (translated)
Machine-translated from Sinhala / Tamil / English¶ 01 Not Harin. The one who crossed was your good friend.
¶ 02 Hon. Presiding Member, another important matter. Suppose we obtain a mobile number in Sri Lanka—from Dialog, Mobitel or Hutch. We pay for it. I have used the same number for 20 years. Many Members here have used the same numbers for years. Yet even if a mobile operator offers conveniences, we cannot transfer ownership of our number; we must cancel and get a new one. That is wrong. The number is part of my identity; the right to the number should be mine. I urge the Government to bring changes so that numbers can be owned and transferred by subscribers. If someone pays to obtain a phone number, the right should be with that person, not solely the company, since we pay for it. This needs to change.
¶ 03 Hon. Presiding Member, especially regarding the digital identity card, we ask the Government to foster a social dialogue so that we can make informed decisions on what should be done.
¶ 04 Thank you very much.
Provenance
- Source
- Hansard, Tuesday, 11 March 2025 ·No. 1743759139093629 ·English daily/uncorrected Hansard
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Cite as: The Hon. Mujibur Rahman. 10th Parliament, Parliament of Sri Lanka. Hansard, 11 March 2025. No. 1743759139093629. Politick, https://staging.politick.io/lk/speeches/19030