Mobile subscriber registration almost law

By Paul Vecchiatto, ITWeb Cape Town correspondent

Cape Town, 30 Aug 2007

The National Assembly yesterday passed amendments to the monitoring of communications law.

The amendments mandate cellular operators to register all prepaid customers within one year and that all visitors must register their cellphones. SA's estimated 38 million cellphone subscribers largely consist of prepaid users.

The law is officially called the Regulation of Interception and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (Rica). It holds strict penalties for network operators that are unable to meet the one-year deadline in registering and verifying the details of their prepaid clients. These penalties include the possible loss of their licences.

Mandatory registration

Rica has been amended four times since it was first passed by Parliament in 2002. The latest changes were supposed to have been passed last year. They make it mandatory for SA's estimated 33 million prepaid cellphone users to register their full names, identity numbers, home and business addresses with the operators. The cellphone companies also have to verify these details are correct.

It also means foreign visitors who have cellphones with overseas networks that have roaming agreements with the local operators, have to be registered.

There are also severe penalties, including a jail term of up to 10 years, for those found tampering with cellphone manufacturer numbers, as well as the individual unit IMEA numbers.

Subscribers are obliged to inform the network operators when they sell or transfer their phones to another party and details of the new owner have to be registered.

The main purpose of the registration of subscribers is to help law enforcement agencies fight organised crime through the efficient tracing of cellphone ownership.

Inconvenient measures?

Parliament rejected the plea made last year by the network operators for a 36-month period to register their subscribers as they felt the one-year period was insufficient. Vodacom said it would have to process about 90 000 people a day, while MTN said it would have to cope with about 8 000 subscribers a day. Cell C said it would have to handle about 250 000 registrations a month.

When introducing the amendment Bill before the National Assembly, Fatima Chohan (ANC), chairperson of the Parliamentary Justice Committee, said it was needed to help fight crime and that its provisions were in line with international practice.

"South Africans complain about crime, but are not willing to be inconvenienced by the measures put in to curb it," she said.

ANC committee member Llewellyn Landes and deputy justice minister Johnny de Lange supported her comments. Both pointed out that it made no sense to allow criminals to easily slip across the borders to buy SIM cards in a neighbouring country and then not have to register them on return.

"It doesn't make sense. Anyone with half a brain can see that," De Lange said.

2010 worries

Opposition political parties expressed mixed feelings about the amendments.

Len Joubert (DA) said while his party supported any initiative to fight crime, he was worried about the inconvenience to visitors, especially those arriving during the 2010 World Soccer Cup, and the implementation of the Bill's provisions.

Rica still has to be passed by the National Council of Provinces and then signed by president Thabo Mbeki before it finally becomes law.