In an attempt to check incidents of cell phone snatching, the government has proposed to enact a law that would make use of stolen mobile phones a non-bailable offence punishable with up to seven years of imprisonment.
The decisions was taken at a meeting chaired by Minister for Interior Rehman Malik on Friday and attended by secretary interior, secretary information technology, chairman PTA, director FIA and other senior officers.
In the absence of any cyber law in the country, the meeting decided to resubmit the already expired Cyber Agreement Ordinance in parliament with enhanced scope.
Apart from cell phone snatching, the use of subscriber identification module (SIM) without proper documentation is another major issue the authorities are facing.
The law enforcers believe that the terrorists and criminals use stolen SIMs or the ones issued without any proper identity documents of the subscribers.
The meeting decided to make it mandatory for the cell phone owners to report the theft to the police and supply the police report to the service providers and PTA to enable them to block the stolen mobile phone connection immediately.
Once the law is enacted, the country’s telecommunication regulator, PTA, will set up special mechanism to supervise this operation.
Taking notice of increasing number of mobile phone sets with replicated International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers, the meeting asked Federal Board of Revenue to block the import of all such handsets and directed FIA to seize such handsets.
Legally every handset should have a separate (IMEI) number and if stolen such a set can be detected if reused with any new SIM.
Cheap cell phone sets with replicated IMEI numbers are mostly imported from China and they have flooded the local market over the past few years.
Due to replicated IMEI numbers on these sets it is difficult to block such handsets even if reported as stolen as all the sets bearing the same number stand blocked.
The government has also decided to constitute a task force headed by Chairman PTA with ADG FIA, Director (technical) IT Ministry and Deputy Chairman NADRA. This team will meet on a regular basis and advise the government on how to stop misuse of SIMs obtained fraudulently.
PTA representatives informed the meeting that over 7 million pre-paid SIMS issued on fake IDs have been blocked. There are another 17 million pre-paid SIMs which are being verified.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 15th, 2012.
COMMENTS (3)
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Mr. Rehman,
The first right thing to be done in the last 5 yrs. Chalo, kuch toh acha kiya,
please come with actions
So wait, if I buy a genuine expensive phone, with a unique IMEI, and a replicated phone is reported stolen and blocked in the future, I could be jailed for 7 years??