“Why is your daughter sharing her pictures via WhatsApp?” a question directed by an employee of the YOU- Yemen Oman United telecommunication Company to a customer who visited the company’s office in Taiz to complain: his daughter’s phone number, the one she uses for WhatsApp and other social media platforms, had been sold to another person.
Yemeni community activist Mohammed Abdullah witnessed this incident while visiting the company’s headquarters for personal transactions. Speaking with SMEX, Abdullah recounted that the complainant said about instances of blackmail and abusive messages directed towards his daughter and her friends by the individual who acquired her number.
Recently, numerous complaints have surfaced on social media, voiced by users expressing discontent over strangers sharing their long-standing contact numbers. This incident has transpired amidst the conspicuous silence of Yemeni telecommunications companies, who have refrained from issuing official statements.
Continued Confiscations: A Persistent Trend
In 2022, Yemen Mobile Communications Company, jointly owned by the state, private sector, and trust funds, pioneered introducing fourth-generation (4G) services to the Yemeni market. It emerged as the first company to offer this service nationwide. The surge in demand for subscriptions overwhelmed the company’s capacity to allocate new numbers, leading to the utilization of inactive or expired numbers, presumed neglected by their original owners for a specific duration. In 2023, concurrent with Yemen Mobile’s acquisition of a 4G service license, Sabafon also secured a permit to operate the same service.
Among the many people affected was Yemeni human rights activist Shrouk al-Refaee, who discovered that her private phone number had been reassigned to another person. She revealed in an interview with SMEX that the individual who acquired her number initiated communication with her friends and relatives, impersonating her and soliciting money under the guise of financial distress. Moreover, the impostor asked her friends to share private photos. Al-Refaee remained unaware of the situation until one of her friends suspected something was wrong, as this behavior was not typical of her. She went to see her and told her what was happening. Al-Refaee discovered that a stranger now owned her number.
“This ordeal has significantly impacted my life, leading to severed connections with several acquaintances and friends,” al-Refaee shared with SMEX. Despite her regular mobile credit top-ups, she emphasized that the telecommunications company sold her number without prior notice. Upon approaching the company, she was confronted with a hefty fee for number retrieval. Al-Refaee’s number added to the issue’s sensitivity because it was the authenticator for her social media accounts, linked to crucial features like two-step verification.
A similar predicament befell Yemeni journalist and human rights specialist Issam Balghaith, who endured years of detention by the Houthi movement Ansar Allah in Sanaa before his release in 2022. Without proper identification documents that would allow him to purchase a SIM card, Balghaith sought assistance from a friend to obtain a new one and procured a new number from YOU in Ma’rib. However, his access to the WhatsApp application was abruptly cut off after a few days. Upon dialing his number from another phone, he discovered that another person had purchased it, who claimed he had bought the number from the company’s headquarters.
Realizing that rectifying the issue through the telecommunications company might be a protracted process, Balghaith, whose lost number had vital aspects of his professional life, including work-related communication, outreach to platforms and organizations, and monitoring human rights violations, opted to contact the purchaser directly. To his surprise, retrieving the number was a walk in the park, as the individual was easily convinced. Following the retrieval, Balghaith visited the company’s headquarters to address the issue, only to encounter apathetic employees displaying minimal willingness to assist.
In 2021, an official declaration marked the sale of the telecommunications entity MTN to non-Yemeni investors, rebranding it as the YOU company. The company began its operations by announcing the swift deployment of 4G services. However, the government in Aden contested this sale, denouncing it as illegal and alleging that the Houthi group had seized control of the company under the guise of “foreign investors.” Consequently, a decree was issued to prohibit the company from functioning in territories under Houthi control, particularly in Aden and the southern governorates, areas densely populated with the company’s subscribers. This decision compelled subscribers to switch to Yemen Mobile services, abandoning their previous numbers save for WhatsApp usage and similar communication applications. Some subscribers continued topping up balances to preserve their numbers. Still, it was in vain, as these numbers were eventually lost.
On August 21, the Yemeni Council of Ministers in the internationally recognized government announced the signing of an investment agreement with an Emirati telecommunications company to operate in areas under government control. However, no specifics regarding the agreement or the company’s identity were disclosed. Subsequently, a report from the fact-finding committee in the Yemeni parliament unveiled the company’s name as NX Technology, accusing the government of constitutional violations and operating beyond its jurisdiction. The committee described the situation as a “grave transgression” and highlighted its unprecedented nature in Yemeni governance.
The issue extended beyond YOU, impacting subscribers of Yemen Mobile, Yemen’s largest telecommunications provider. As the company rolled out 4G services, its operations expanded, resulting in a surge in subscribers, surpassing ten million, per its announcement. Initially, the numbers distributed by the company since 2005 began with 77. However, due to the growing subscriber base, the company introduced a new number category starting with 78. This adjustment was necessary given its exclusive coverage across all Yemeni territories.
The experiences encountered by Yemen Mobile users mirror those of YOU users. Ruqaya Danana, a Yemeni journalist based in Aden, recounted in an interview with SMEX how her friends unexpectedly reached out to inquire about her late-night video call attempts, noting changes in her speech pattern and accent, which she had no prior knowledge of. When her friends alerted her, Danana became aware of the situation.
Like al-Refaee’s ordeal, Danana remained oblivious to the truth until her friend visited her to inquire about the behavior change, as she disclosed to SMEX. She was also consistent with topping up her mobile credit balance for her long-held number to prevent losing it. Danana visited the Yemen Mobile company headquarters in Aden, where employees claimed her phone had been inactive and switched off for some time, leading to the sale of her number. Disputing their assertion, Danana insisted on her number’s continuous activity. However, the response she received was to “reach out to the buyer” herself and try to reach an understanding.
Indeed, this is the action Danana took. She informed SMEX that the purchaser of the number needed to be more responsive, occasionally agreeing to return the number only to retract their agreement subsequently. This situation persists at the time of writing this article.
This phenomenon extends its impact far beyond mere phone and social media communication, as evidenced by the experience shared by Muhammad Awad with SMEX. Residing in the Ma’rib governorate, Awad visited an exchange shop to collect a transfer sent by a relative. In Yemen, exchange companies typically require the recipient’s phone number to verify their identity. However, when Awad provided his number, which he had owned for many years, to the Sabafon company, he was astonished when an employee informed him that the number was registered under another individual’s name, rendering him unable to receive the transfer.
Awad contacted a friend in Sanaa for advice, who suggested visiting the company’s headquarters to address the issue. However, the company responded that the number had been sold to another person and no longer belonged to Awad. They advised him to “contact the buyer of the number and negotiate an understanding.” Awad expressed to SMEX that he regularly receives numerous money transfers from relatives and friends to conduct a few matters on their behalf in Ma’rib. Yet, this unexpected development disrupted his workflow, compelling him to post on Facebook and disavowing any association with the number.
The Companies’ Responses
Subsequently, we contacted the telecommunications companies in Yemen to address the escalating complaints and the prevailing issue.
Initially, SMEX approached Yemen Mobile’s Director of Public Relations, Abdul Rahman al-Ziyadi, who clarified that the sale of inactive numbers adheres to a regulatory framework established by the Ministry of Telecommunications. This framework mandates that companies can only introduce new categories after submitting annual reports detailing the number of active numbers, known as number movement. Such a regulation is essential as it ensures that companies optimize their resources effectively. Similar sentiments were echoed by the marketing department at YOU company.
Regarding number confiscation, al-Ziyadi emphasized that inactive numbers are subject to confiscation after six months of inactivity, contrary to the previous three-month period. He underscored that any number that has been recharged cannot be confiscated, dismissing complaints suggesting otherwise as “false.”
In conclusion, al-Ziyadi reiterated to SMEX that while the company’s previous approach of directing complainants to communicate with the number purchaser was deemed “logical and realistic” back then, they have now extended the period of number confiscation from three to six months. Furthermore, they no longer sell confiscated numbers immediately and provide subscribers with a two-month window to reclaim their numbers. However, once the number is transferred to another individual, the company cannot compel the buyer to return it.
Regarding the YOU company, they clarified to SMEX that while they do not own the numbers, they benefit from operating them. The subscriber agreement includes a clause mandating that the subscriber not leave their number inactive for three consecutive months, granting the company the right to withdraw and resell it. This measure aims to maximize the utilization of the national resources acquired annually from the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology.
No response was received from Sabafon, based in Sana’a, at the time of the article’s publication.
Telecommunications programming expert Majid al-Aawar suggests that the issue might lie within the companies’ systems, which categorize a number as inactive even if its balance is regularly recharged. Still, it shouldn’t make or receive calls. Al-Aawar highlighted in an interview with SMEX that companies utilize specific algorithms that automatically deactivate numbers lacking any communication activity.
Furthermore, al-Aawar pointed out that software glitches could also contribute to the swift withdrawal of inactive numbers without proper activity verification. Companies are responsible for rectifying such issues and notifying subscribers if necessary.
Confiscation of Privacy
The repercussions of people losing their phone numbers extend far beyond mere ownership; it entails a breach of their security and privacy. Nour Khaled, a Yemeni engineer specializing in digital security, has received numerous complaints over the past three months from individuals who discovered that their numbers were being shared with strangers, particularly among Yemen Mobile users.
In an interview with SMEX, Khaled elaborated on how the suspension of operations by Sabafon and YOU companies in Aden and the southern governorates compelled people to procure new lines from Yemen Mobile while retaining their previous numbers for social media usage. She emphasized that the issue of number confiscation poses one of the gravest challenges due to resulting cases of extortion, especially given that subscribers often utilize their numbers to activate the two-step verification, linking them to all their accounts and digital presence.
Khaled further noted that the only recourse for users in Yemen currently is to activate the two-step verification feature and link it to their email addresses instead of their phone numbers.
Four mobile telecommunications companies operate in Yemen, headquartered in the capital, Sana’a, and have been under the control of the Houthi movement Ansar Allah since 2014, catering to over thirty million Yemeni citizens. The first mobile company established in Yemen in 2001 was Sabafon, characterized by the number of categories commencing with 711. Concurrently, in 2001, Spacetel Yemen emerged with several categories commencing with 733. Spacetel Yemen was subsequently acquired by the international MTN group of companies in 2006, only to be sold again in 2022 to a consortium of non-Yemeni investors. In 2007, YOU Telecom was inaugurated with numbers that start with 700, albeit without achieving the success of its predecessors.
Yemen Mobile began operations in 2004, introducing number categories commencing with 777. As a joint-stock company, the Yemeni government, facilitated through the Telecommunications Corporation, owns the largest shareholding.
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