Political squabbling delays RICA

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2007

A spat between the Department of Justice and safety and security minister Charles Nqakula has pushed moves to toughen the Regulation of Interception of Communication and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (RICA) to the Parliamentary backburner.

The Security and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) has decided to leave the RICA Amendment Bill over to a future meeting, while the police and justice officials decide how detailed the law must be on the registration of mobile phones.

According to the Parliamentary Monitoring Group, committee chairman Kgoshi Lameck Mokoena, at the most recent meeting of the body, said the office of deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was mediating disagreements between the departments.

Justice officials are pushing the Bill as a measure to better prosecute crime - albeit at "some inconvenience" to the public.

Mobile phone providers have told the committee that the Bill - already passed by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament - was more than "inconvenient". It was impractical and would, among other consequences, require them to deny international visitors access to local roaming facilities, they said.

Vodacom managing executive of regulatory affairs Pakamile Pongwana said access to mobile phones - even in deep rural areas - meant most people in SA were now able to make a voice call, thus eliminating the digital divide as far as phones were concerned. The amendments, he feared, would reverse this situation.

He added that only two million out of 11 million households had addresses and asked whether effectively precluding a large part of the population from legally owning phones was worth the benefits the Bill would bring to law enforcement. He said emphasis should be placed on targeting real criminals, rather than on 'criminalising` network operators and the public at large if they were unable to comply with this law.

Nqakula earlier this month wrote the committee a letter that said several of the amendments the justice department sought were unnecessary, including the requirement to record handset detail - as opposed to SIM cards - and compelling visitors to register before they could roam.

The minister`s letter

The minister said it "should be noted that technology has drastically improved over the last four years, in many instances enabling institutions such as the South African Police Service to achieve, in close co-operation with the cellular networks, technology outcomes that make certain proposed amendments superfluous".

"Networks have undertaken to fully explore further technology outcomes and services to further enhance, not only their relationship with the South African Police Service, but significantly support its crime prevention and combating functions," he added.

The police minister said detectives were keen that the Mobile Subscriber Integrated Service Digital Network (MSISDN) number of the SIM-card be recorded and stored. However, registration of the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the cellular phone "is not necessary to identify users since handsets cannot be activated without a SIM-card, the latter which, in any event, has to be registered".

The minister did, however, have some new proposals of his own, suggesting "the Bill must expressly provide that full handsets profiles (so-called IMEI-mapping) must be stored by cellular networks, and be available to law enforcement agencies, for a period of 10 years.

"It should be legislated that all MSISDN registration information, including that of contract subscribers within the databases of service providers, be submitted into and be held in a central database at the network and be easily accessible to law enforcement through the application of legal instruments."

He argued this was necessary "considering the current proliferation of service providers and sub-service providers where information is currently held all over the country, and often difficult to speedily access".

Justice rebuts

Justice officials, at a committee hearing on 6 November, publicly differed with the view that the IMEI number was unnecessary. State law advisor Ina Botha said her department was worried about the time it would take police to collect the data if it was not recorded and whether the evidence would be admissible in court. She cited the recently concluded trial of child murderer Dina Rodrigues as an example.

Botha said unlike the police, who just had to find evidence that would allow them to charge a perpetrator, justice officials also had to worry about the admissibility of evidence and securing a conviction.

Her colleague, state law advisor Sarel Robbertse, added that once a SIM card was used with a handset, there was a link, but he pointed out that certain other services were rendered where the IMEI number was not always available - of which the SMS was the best example.

Police and rescue officials say the RICA amendments will benefit the public in terms of emergency response, allowing them to dispatch appropriate assistance faster as they will have ready access to caller IDs and addresses.