At nearly 8 PM on June 5, Như Hoa, a Viettel collaborator, finally met with Hà Thị In in Mai Châu, Phú Thọ, after several appointments. In is one of the users who has not verified her mobile subscription, putting her phone at risk of being partially locked after June 15.
During the busy harvest season, she, like many locals, leaves home at dawn and returns late. This poses a challenge for telecom collaborators like Hoa. “If I arrive early, she isn’t home; if I come later, she’s already asleep. I have to seize every opportunity to schedule a meeting,” she shared.
Mai Châu, a mountainous commune, is in the midst of a busy farming season. To complete the goal of verifying all mobile subscriptions, telecom employees have been working overtime for the past two months, visiting homes to assist the elderly and those with mobility difficulties.
The Ministry of Science and Technology’s Circular 08 regarding mobile subscription information verification took effect on April 15. According to this, telecom operators must ensure that each subscription contains four fields of information: personal identification number, full name, date of birth, and biometric facial recognition. These data must match the National Population Database maintained by the Ministry of Public Security.
The implementation process of the Circular is designed to be simple, utilizing the VNeID application, which allows users to “self-verify anytime, anywhere without needing to visit a store.” However, many people do not use smartphones and do not have the electronic identification app—this group requires assistance from the telecom provider.
Phú Thọ is one of the provinces with the highest proportions of Viettel users in the country. However, many subscriptions in remote areas face difficulties in access or people overlook the information due to fears of scams, necessitating the telecom provider to send staff to their homes. According to a representative from the telecom operator in the Mai Châu area, there were still about 8,000 people needing direct assistance at the beginning of June. Over the past two months, the telecom operator has implemented numerous measures to encourage verification among subscribers, such as sending text messages, using loudspeakers, and coordinating with local authorities in smaller areas to call on subscribers to verify.
Smartphone users are guided by the telecom operator to perform the verification directly on their devices. For those using basic phones, telecom staff have a special application to assist them. In fact, if one has a chip-embedded citizen identification card, the verification process with facial scanning and ID card scanning takes less than five minutes. The main challenge lies in reaching the customers.
Nhung, a Viettel employee in Tân Mai commune, stated that due to daytime farming commitments, the hours from 6 PM to 11 PM have become the “golden hours” for staff to work in the villages. Navigating through dozens of kilometers of mountainous roads or returning home at midnight has become routine. In May, she was among the top-performing staff in her area, assisting nearly 800 people with verification.
This is also a common challenge for telecom operators. To address the issue, various measures have been implemented to encourage verification, such as sending text messages, using loudspeakers, and coordinating with local authorities in smaller areas.
In the photo, a VinaPhone employee visits a household in Lào Cai to provide support. A characteristic of the remote villages is that many families have only one mobile phone. When a family member takes the phone to work in the fields early in the morning, the telecom staff must persistently return multiple times to meet them.
Furthermore, the fear of technology scams has led some people to refuse cooperation. In many instances, frontline workers need to rely on the credibility of village leaders who accompany them to persuade residents to feel more secure about cooperating.
In such areas, an effective method is to broadcast announcements through loudspeakers. However, due to the dispersed nature of households, telecom staff must come up with more creative ways, such as using mobile loudspeakers to go through every alley, urging users to come to the cultural house where telecom staff are stationed for verification assistance.
Ngần Văn Thẩm lives alone in a stilt house halfway up a mountain and has a leg disability, making movement difficult. After searching for his citizen identification card hidden in the wall of his stilt house, he received assistance from Mai, who helped him scan the NFC chip and take a photo, completing the procedure in just a few minutes.
“I know there is a regulation to verify subscriptions, but the roads are far, so I couldn’t go by myself. Luckily, the telecom staff came to my home to help,” Mr. Thẩm shared.
Mai stated that to ensure the progress of standardization for the remote village, she must continuously combine various methods: from contacting through the village chat group, making announcements at the market, to visiting each house. Currently, most villagers have successfully updated their information, with only a few remaining, such as young people working away or cases of unregistered SIM cards waiting for additional procedures.
According to statistics from the Telecommunications Department under the Ministry of Science and Technology, as of early June, data from 103 million mobile subscriptions have been uploaded to the national electronic verification application VNeID.
Among them, 25 million subscriptions have yet to confirm their ownership status. The verification and standardization of information are not only management requirements but also contribute to preventing junk SIMs, reducing the risk of online scams, and protecting users in the digital environment.
After June 15, phone numbers that have not confirmed their usage status on the VNeID application will be partially locked and must complete the information standardization process if they wish to continue using them.
