We are now in the last week of September, and the facial biometric measures have still not been officially rolled out for new and existing mobile phone lines, as announced by Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA).
It is a big step towards digitalisation. It will be an optional step, but I am not taking it any time soon — and I won’t be alone in that hesitation.
Last month, many Egyptians, including yours truly, discovered that we had additional mobile phone lines and mobile money wallets registered under our National IDs without our knowledge through Egypt’s four mobile phone networks.
Yes, you read that correctly.
On 7 August 2026, I discovered through the NTRA’s application, My NTRA, that another mobile phone line — aka a SIM card — was registered to my National ID number on Orange Egypt without my knowledge.
The My NTRA app is available for free on both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.
I have been a very long-term Orange Egypt customer, going back to when it was still Mobinil, and I had never received any notification that I had this mobile phone number.
I had never received any bills for it, and it had never appeared in the “My Orange” app.
I did once have an internet line from Orange Egypt a long time ago, but it was suspended for inactivity. It was not the same number.
Orange Egypt handles data lines under the same NTRA rules that apply across all Egyptian operators. Since data lines are prepaid, if a line remains unused for 90 days — with no calls, SMS messages or data activity — the operator suspends its service.
Before that happens, however, the operator is required to warn the customer twice: once 10 days before the cutoff and again 48 hours before.
Once the line is suspended, there is still a 15-day grace period to save it, simply by using or recharging it, provided that the customer’s details match those held by Orange.
Only after that 15-day window passes without any action does Orange cancel the contract and release the number back into its pool, where it can be resold to a new customer. At that point, it is gone for good.
That is exactly what happened to the data lines — aka MiFi lines — from TeData, later WE/Telecom Egypt, that I bought over the years to keep working during power outages.
None of those lines appeared to be linked to my National ID anymore.
The mysterious mobile phone line, however, was there — although I could not even see the full number. Only a few digits were displayed. And please do not ask me why.
I was lucky that I found no other mobile money wallet registered under my National ID apart from the one I actually own, which is linked to my bank account rather than directly to my mobile phone line, unlike services such as Orange Cash.
I was even luckier than many other people who discovered three, six, or even 20 mobile phone lines connected to their National IDs.
Even renowned public figures were affected.
