Passport Required To Buy Mobile Phones In the UK

David Gerard points out a Times Online story that says: "Everyone [in the UK] who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance. Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society. A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say." We've recently discussed other methods the UK government is using to keep track of people within its borders, such as ID cards for foreigners and comprehensive email surveillance.

Comments

Re:It's always been required...

[sakdoctor]

1. Buy a PAYG phone
2. Don't bother registering it
3. Buy top-ups using cash
4. Anonymity

Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. The most powerful vote you have is indeed to leave.

Cell phones and terrorists

[qbzzt]

However, if you're planning $LARGE_SPECTACULAR_JIHADIST_ATTACK, and you steal a phone, it makes you a little more likely to be caught/fail.

You don't. You get a sympathizer to buy one for you, and then claim it was stolen. Enough phones are stolen anyway that this won't look suspicious.

Open societies are going to be vulnerable to terrorism. We can accept that, give up our freedoms, or be so scary nobody will want to mess with us.

Re:Cell phones and terrorists

[ATMD]

> Open societies are going to be vulnerable to terrorism.

Mod parent up, this is the most insightful thing I've seen on Slashdot in a good while. When you scale that familiar security/convenience trade-off up to national governments, it morphs into security/civil liberties. Since absolute security can never be achieved, (be it for computer or country), the march towards that end of the spectrum must be halted before citizens of the Western world have no more freedom than denizens of 1970s Cambodia.