Bangladesh’s mobile telephone operators must deactivate more than one million unregistered SIM cards from Sunday as deadline for registration ended last night, telecoms watchdog officials said, reports Reuters.

“For years operators in the South Asian country have been allowed to sell the cards without asking to see identification and registering the purchaser’s personal details.

But last year the government introduced new regulations requiring personal details to be recorded for security concerns.

The industry regulator ordered mobile operators in August 2007 to re-register customers who bought connections before February 28, 2006.

It later extended the deadline four times to May 31 to give the operators more time to plan for the change.”