pin for eSIM?

ne_291 wrote:

Hi Lawrence,

On day 3 of my issue, I went to another T-Mobile shop. I asked about the PUK and he said he's only seen them used with "old Galaxy phones" and didn't know why I got this on an iPhone. I took screenshots of all anomalies and showed him. Ultimately, he deleted my primary eSIM, and reassigned it to my number. All is back to normal now, knock titanium.

I still don't know if assigning a SIM PIN to an eSIM makes any sense. The option is there but info on this is seriously lacking.

Adding a SIM PIN means that any time the phone is restarted you would have to enter the PIN, but if your phone has a passcode that would also prevent someone from using the phone with or without a SIM PIN, so for an eSIM it would be redundant. For a physical SIM a PIN is a good idea, because it would prevent someone from stealing your phone, taking the SIM out of your phone and putting it in another phone and using your account.

Thus, I don’t see any real benefit for a SIM PIN for an eSIM.

You get a PUK code to reset a SIM PIN from your carrier. Either log in to the user portal on the carrier’s website from a computer and search for PUK (Personal Unlock Key) or see if you can chat online with their support. Or call their support from another phone.

It’s not a feature offered by Apple; it is a feature of the SIM/eSIM standard. So Apple is obligated to implement it unless they want to defy the standard.

And it does have a security purpose for people who (foolishly) don’t have a passcode on their iPhone, and also for people with dumb phones that support eSIM. This will become more common as physical SIMs are phased out by carriers.

This is a user-to-user site only. Apple is not here, so please don't look for comments from Apple.