KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 — In a bid to curb mobile scams and spam, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) will terminate some 1.6 million prepaid accounts by early January 2019.

According to The Star today, the exercise is said to affect accounts that have remained unclaimed by their owners and have the potential of being misused for dubious schemes.

"We found the particulars given to the telcos did not match the National Registration Department records,” MCMC’s Network Security and Enforcement sector chief officer Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin told the newspaper.

The report also said that MCMC found some account subscribers did not carry their own identification numbers and that those concerned will receive a notice over the coming weeks to verify their information before termination.

According to the report, there are 46 million active subscriptions in Malaysia yet only 32 million are prepaid accounts.

"If they don’t update their details within a specific time after the notification, we have instructed the numbers be terminated,” said Zulkarnain.

"This is done for security purposes. It is also done to curb spamming, scams and unsolicited messages via SMS.”