Regulator says biometric SIM checks are optional, with no mandatory deadline

Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) is expanding biometric identity verification through mobile operators' applications, part of the package of measures it imposed this month after complaints that lines had been registered under people's national IDs without their knowledge.

The scope of that expansion has been the subject of confusion. Reporting through August described face-based verification being rolled out alongside re-contracting requirements, which some readers took to mean that every subscriber would eventually have to submit a face scan. Officials have since described the biometric step differently: as an option available to subscribers, not a compulsory requirement, and no mandatory nationwide deadline for it has been announced.

Cairo Stream has not been able to retrieve an NTRA press release stating a mandatory biometric requirement. The regulator's published measures require notification and re-contracting; the biometric mechanism is described as being accelerated through operators' electronic applications rather than imposed on all holders.

What is actually required

The requirement that does carry a deadline is contractual, not biometric. Under the measures announced on 10 August 2026, operators must notify existing line holders by SMS and have them attend a branch to sign a contract in the name of the actual user, with lines subject to permanent cancellation if the procedure is not completed within the stated period.

That sits alongside the suspension of bulk sales and activation of lines to corporate and government entities through operator systems, and the referral of Egypt's four mobile operators to the Public Prosecution. The regulatory background to those steps is set out in our report on the arrests over unauthorized SIM registrations.

Where biometrics fit

The biometric layer is being delivered through apps rather than counters. The stated purpose is to let a person prove they are who the registration record says they are, and to give someone whose ID has been used without consent a way to act on a line they never asked for.

The NTRA's My NTRA application already exposes the underlying question through its “My Numbers” service, which lists the lines registered against a national ID. A face check is the logical next step for the same service: it raises the confidence that the person querying or cancelling a line is the ID holder.

The unresolved questions

Several details have not been published. There is no announced retention period for face templates collected through operator applications, no published statement of which entity holds them, and no stated legal basis referenced against Egypt's personal data protection law, whose executive regulations were issued in 2025 and are covered in our report on the personal data protection executive regulations.

Those questions are not academic. A biometric identifier cannot be reissued the way a password or even a national ID number can, which is why data-protection practitioners treat it as a distinct category with its own safeguards.

What subscribers should do now

The action with a deadline attached is the contract, not the face scan. Subscribers who receive an SMS from their operator should treat the re-contracting instruction as the binding step, and can separately check which lines sit under their national ID through the My NTRA application.

Cairo Stream will update this report if the NTRA publishes a mandatory biometric requirement, a deadline, or a retention and safeguards statement.