Keep track of cellphones

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 23 Aug 2007

Amendments to the Regulation of Interception and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (RICA), now before Parliament, criminalise the failure to keep certain prescribed records when reselling mobile phone handsets.

A failure to follow the law could see an individual locked away for up to a year, says Michalsons ICT attorney Helaine Leggat.

RICA became law in 2005, after being legislated in 2002. The gap has been attributed to several controversies that first had to be resolved. At least two sections are still not in effect for that reason.

Leggat says the amendment will, in part, seek to clarify these sections. She reminds that the law was written to help the authorities fight serious crime. Criminals often use cellphones in the commission of offences. RICA aims to create an audit trail to allow police to connect a particular suspect to a specific handset, at an exact time.

One of the sections of RICA under amendment requires cellular service providers to keep records of the identity and address of clients, including pay-as-you-go subscribers. The difficulty with this has been tracking shack dwellers and the resale of handsets between private individuals who are not family.

Chain of accountability

"A nice example of why this is necessary was the recent bombing attempts in London and Glasgow, where one of the suspects was tracked to Rome where he was using a mobile phone given to him by his brother," Leggat says.

"The amendments make it clear what records should be kept and also creates a definition of what a family member is. The Bill says a family member is related by law or biology and can include a permanent life partner." A girlfriend would probably not qualify, she notes.

"It brings us into the chain of accountability, as there is no point in making providers responsible for gathering and keeping such data when it can so easily be bypassed.

"What is scary, from the individual perspective, is that these duties are onerous. It also makes us responsible for other people's private data." This obligation is about to become more onerous as the Protection of Personal Information Bill winds its way through Parliament.

The amendments will also require foreign visitors to SA to register before they can let their phones roam on the local networks. This may prove an irritant to organising a successful 2010 Soccer World Cup.