<http://www.timesonl
October 19, 2008
Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their
identity on a national database under government plans to extend
massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of
identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it
marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.
A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones
in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism
and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register
containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in
recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.
The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated 40m
prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who
do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.
The pay-as-you-go phones are popular with criminals and terrorists
because their anonymity shields their activities from the authorities.
But they are also used by thousands of law-abiding citizens who wish to
communicate in private.
The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the
government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge
database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and
telephone records of everyone in Britain.
The “Big Brother” database would have limited value to police and MI5 if
it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the mobile
phones in the country.
Contingency planning for such a move is already thought to be under way
at Vodafone, where 72% of its 18.5m UK customers use pay-as-you-go.
The office of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said it
anticipated that a compulsory mobile phone register would be unveiled as
part of a law which ministers would announce next year.
“With regards to the database that would contain details of all mobile
users, including pay-as-you-go, we would expect that this information
would be included in the database proposed in the draft Communications
Data Bill,” a spokeswoman said.
Simon Davies, of Privacy International, said he understood that several
mobile phone firms had discussed the proposed database in talks with
government officials.
As The Sunday Times revealed earlier this month, GCHQ has already been
provided with up to £1 billion to work on the pilot stage of the Big
Brother database, which will see thousands of “black boxes” installed on
communications lines provided by Vodafone and BT as part of a pilot
interception programme.
The proposals have sparked a fierce backlash inside Whitehall. Senior
officials in the Home Office have privately warned that the database
scheme is impractical, disproportionate and potentially unlawful. The
revolt last week forced Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, to delay
announcing plans for the database until next year.
Wednesday 22 October 2008
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