CITC: August 31 Final Deadline for Bulk SMS Service Beneficiaries to Register Their Sender Names in the Electronic System

The Communications and Information Technology Commission called on all entities benefiting from the bulk SMS service to contact their contracted SMS service providers to register their sender names in the electronic system before the final deadline of August 31, in order to avoid disruption of services relying on SMS, as after this date, sending of any text message (SMS) carrying a sender name not registered in the system will be halted.

The Commission explained that this comes as part of its role in regulating the sector and protecting its users from the misuse of bulk text messages and fraudulent and spam text messages, noting that it set this final deadline for registering all current sender names in the system and fulfilling all registration requirements, after having worked with SMS service providers to establish governance for registering and verifying beneficiary entities' sender names through a unified electronic system since March 20, 2022, while thanking, at the same time, the entities that have complied with registering their sender names in the electronic system, at a rate exceeding 85% of senders.

The Commission also affirmed the necessity for beneficiary entities to contact all their contracted message service providers and provide them with the required data and documents, in order to avoid disruption of any services relying on SMS, noting that it disclaims responsibility for any effects resulting from the halting of these messages due to non-compliance with registering sender names in the system.