UK to force prepaid phone buyers to produce ID
In a bizarre move the UK government has announced its intention to bring forward a law that would require all mobile phone providers to register prepaid accounts with purchasers photo identification.
“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 ”
This will involves enormous costs for UK carriers as the law is retrospective and will definitely involve the hiring of 100′s of extra staff.
The situation at Vodafone will be critical where 72% of its 18.5m UK customers use pay-as-you-go, just think of the amount of staff, time and costs involved in retrospectively registering 12 million customers, it will be interesting to see how the markets respond to this on Monday.
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the people they are trying to track will either use fake ID’s or use foreign SIM cards in roaming mode.
Just when I think I can’t hate the British government any more than I already do. They are, plain and simple, scumbags. They don’t care about the right to privacy, they don’t care about any individual rights in fact. So glad I left that country – feel sorry for the poor sods left there.
I agree (partly) with Jackie on the privacy thoughts. The Government are indeed skating on very thin ice with the privacy issue, and it’s not going to do them any favours at the next election.
Does this mean the days of operators sending a bunch of free prepay SIMs to anyone who gives them an address is over?
On a slightly related note, I went to open a savings accounts the other day. The list of ID they require is astonishing – two proofs of address and two forms of other ID, including bank statements, payslips, etc. They also want to credit check me. For a savings account?! Give over..
In italy that’s an official law since a couple of years ago. I cannot buy a prepaid SIM card unless I show my ID which is copied, attached to my agreement and sent to the operator.
Count on the law being scrapped or watered down before full implementation.
I do not see the retrospective registration working. Are they going to disconnect those customers that refuse to register?
Also how are they going to contact pre-pay customers for who they have no contact details?
By the way The Register had an article about this very story today: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/payg_database/
Nice quote in there from Voda:
“Vodafone does not support mandatory registration for its pre-pay customers and has not made any ‘contingency plans’ to start requiring registration for the purposes of a Government data collection scheme.
PAYG services hold an important role in terms of preventing a digital divide in communications. There is no need for a credit check and if customers do not have a permanent base, or a passport, they are not excluded from using these services.”
UK.gov are still smokescreening the issue, claiming it’s a ‘consultation’. Now where have I heard that before.. (mumbles something about the ERM, European Constitution, etc)
Alex: It took me years to open a bank account in the UK because I was not on the electoral roll (I was an American expat). In the end, had to open a joint account with a partner and then migrate to my own separate account. It was a nightmare.
This is just plain evil from the government. There is simply no moral justification for this.
Jackie: Yes they are just plain evil. Another article on El Reg today with senior people warning about the governments increasing amount of snooping and lack of respect for privacy.
Of course it’s all shuffled in under the guise of protecting the ordinary man (and woman) on the street from ‘the powers of evil’. Typical political move – drop a hint that there’s a vague threat, but don’t worry the establishment will protect us by removing our liberty and freedom.
Anyhoo, back on topic. The whole point of dishing out prepay SIM cards merrily was to artificially inflate subscriber numbers. Maybe that’s what Vodafone et al are more concerned about?