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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.
When signing up for a new mobile phone contract, you're pretty much asked for two forms of identifications, such as a driving license, passport, utility bills, etc. so this is nothing new. The new part is the national surveillance database. Thank god I'm moving out of this country.
I had a similar problem when I wanted to by a SIM card in provincial Russia last month. The clerk wouldn't give me one, claiming that not only would I have to show a passport, but a Russian passport. I then just asked a friend to buy the damn thing for me. I thought it was stupid considering how, in most of the civilized world, travelers buy a SIM card from a local kiosk as a matter of course. It's sad to see the UK limiting the ease of travel, then.
Are the USA and the UK in some sort of competition to see who can do the more thorough job of obliterating their citizens' rights to privacy?
Lately there's been a morbid tit-for-tat article exchange going on here on slash, like the USA and UK are trying to outdo one another. Just when you think the USA or UK is as bad as it gets, there's a reply.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
...Cellphone call resgisters YOU!
Oh, it seems in the UK as well...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
I have purchased phones in many countries through out Europe, and Thailand as well, and have always been forced to provide official ID.
Made the decision not to purchase a phone now that I have moved to the USA, so I have no idea about the States. But since I can't even get through the switchboard at my utility company without my SSN, I imagine it might be difficult to buy a phone or have a contract without ID.
Of course, that's a guess. Not saying I agree with this regime - just observing a fact.
Cell phone theft and street robberies are about to rise very rapidly in the UK.
Someone once asked a while ago how much freedom will we be willing to surrender for a false sense of security.
It seems that in the US and UK this very scenario is playing itself out and all we can do is sit, horrified and watch in spite of ourselves.
It's like sitting in the passenger seat of a car that is being driven by a lunatic - you squint your eyes closed but keep peeking because you know what is bound to happen, but you cant help but look and hope you will be somehow wrong.
And safe.
One thing proponents of all this gathering of data on people keep forgetting is that data gets lost, stolen or otherwise compromised on a daily basis.
The UK is a shining example of data getting lost.
How long before a terrorist hacker steals the info and spoofs a phonecall to a bomb that is detonated via cellphone?
Suddenly the possibilities of being wrongly implemented in a terrorist plot is so much more possible.
This is a bad idea all around.
I am glad that I do not live in the US or the UK - if my country implements this kind of policy I would start browsing using the TOR network, set up my own mailserver to do direct relay and eventually fall back on using older means of communication - snail mail and pretty much nothing else.
Who is it that said "As soon as we change our way of living the terrorists have won"?
I tell you now - terrorists are holding the citizens of the US and the UK captive via proxy, and the proxy is ironically the very governments they are battling.
They win on all fronts at this moment.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
The chances of anything coming from Mars is a million to one.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Why is NO ONE from UK protesting against this monstrous humongous assault on rights and freedom?
I mean this UK government is incapable of fulfilling everything that people yet is perfectly capable of converting everyone into a criminal and shooting innocent people in subways and the like.
Why doesn't the stupid holier-than-thou BBC question the government over this massive haul?
First it was ISP snooping and 3-strikes law, next it was throttling, next it was email provacy gone, next it was bedroom privacy gone, next it was laptop privacy gone and now it is this.
Everyday we hear massive new amounts of such assaults against human rights in UK, which puts China and even Korea to shame.
Pretty soon to walk down the street with your dog, the cops would require a passport; for the dog.
And instead of US where privacy and freedom is enshrined, UK depends on courts which seem more likely than ever to side with the stupid government which can't look after its own employees who visit prostitutes and lose their laptops.
Why doesn't the Lords do something?
The commons is made up of Common riff-raff which are more concerned with nailing down the next highest-priced whore who comes their way, while public servants regularly lose private information and then ask us to check our bank accounts.
Why isn't there a law which imposes mandatory criminal jail sentences for people who lose private information.
If an employee loses a laptop, he goes to serve bubba in prison for 12 months or more with free lube given by people.
Why isn't there a law which prevents people from entering a home or accessing someone's private property without authorization from Lords or the Queen herself. in that way if something goes wrong and an innocent person is shot dead because he jumped over a ticket barrier, she is forced to face jail.
Dumb ass citizens! Wake up!
70 years ago, a failed austrian artist did the same thing and propagated Reich. He was atleast intelligent and brilliant.
Your current crop of leaders can't spell their own properly let alone build a reich. The max they can build is what Viagra builds for them!
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
...in recognizing fake passports?
That being a low paying job, I am guessing it employs many immigrants.
From like... I don't know... Nigeria?
And what are the current UK laws on creating and carrying around a obviously fake passport?
You know... kind that would have big red letters saying "FAKE PASSPORT! NOT REAL! NOT A FORM OF IDENTIFICATION! FOR JOKE PURPOSES ONLY!" on it?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
1. Wait in front of mobile-selling location.
2. Spot mobile-buying victim.
3. Follow victim for a while.
4. Club victim on the head, grab bag, run.
You get: one or more mobile phones and cards, one or more forms of ID, money, credit card(s), car and/or house key(s), one or more packet(s) of tissues, one or more packet(s) of gum, various other bonuses.
Or are you perhaps one of those pussy terrorists that is afraid of hitting people on the head and only does suicide bombings?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It was over a decade ago when they were getting happy with CCTV cameras in London. We talked about how creepy that was and that they should be careful that they were not sliding down a slippery slope. We were dismissed, we were laughed at, and now look. We were right.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This would have prevented Jason Bourne from buying a phone and planting it on Simon Ross to talk to him covertly without the CIA being able to trace the call.
My guess would be the UK government watched the movie and decided this loophole need to be closed.
Someone needs to tell the PM in England that Orewell's book 1984 was never meant to be a handbook on how to run a country. It was intended to be a warning against such control.
Sigh.. it's a slippery slope until those in the US begin looking at these with genuine interest, with the intent to deploy these measures within our own borders.
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.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
Another belated movie plot threat response. Specifically, The Bourne Ultimatum, in which Bourne arrives at London's Waterloo station and immediately purchases a pre-paid cellphone to give to his journalist contact. If he had to show a passport to buy that phone... he could have been delayed by a couple of seconds, while he decided which of his fake passports to use. Gee.
(this is not a
Anyone remember when typewriters had to be registered in several Eastern European countries? Being mechanical devices, each had its own unique signature (character shapes, weights, and so forth). The idea was to be able to track the origin of unapproved newsletters etc. which were typically produced via typewriter and stencil or carbon paper. This was all rendered irrelevant by the arrival of PC-based communications (a rear-guard action was fought over printers, faxes, and so forth).
Looks like the UK has just revised those old Soviet-era laws for current technology. Anonymous communication must be considered to be really subversive in the UK.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
All the networks bar stolen IMEI numbers. Most likely what will happen is that people will just find ways to acquire both phones and SIM cards without using ID.
As it stands this wont cause any problems in the short term. I've got quite a few SIM cards lying round for various networks, none of which are associated with any names. As it happens my current PAYG sim is registered to my name just so I can use the control panel on my networks website.
Trading mobile phones and accessories happens to attract a fair few dealers (it's a big cash in hand business so easy to make it look like your making money selling phones, not coke) so I think as soon as word of this law hits then people will just start stockpiling SIMs. In the short term this wont make any difference, it's only over the longer term as unregistered SIMs start to become scarce that it'll cause problems. Getting unregistered mobile phones, however, will be as easy as a trip to mainland Europe.
Nick
When it finally happens it will be just another argument for the electronic chip identity cards that the UK government has been wanting to introduce.
The government, and businesses, will say: it would be so much simpler and more efficient if we had a unified ID standard. After all, you need to show ID to get a phone <strawman>(and Internet access, and airline, train, and coach tickets, and to vote, and to get health care or buy medicines at a pharmacy, and to stay at a hotel)</strawman> and everyone needs that!
The first people to get these ID cards, starting next month, will be foreign students and foreign spouses. Gradually they will be rolled out to more categories of foreigners.
I agree with you that this is a stupid measure, but I'd like to remind you that much Islamist terrorism has been committed by people who are squarely middle class and grew up in nice homes.
I'm not understanding why Britain wants to be so much like North Korea. Britain is trying to create terror in its own civilian population and yet claims to be fighting against terrorism. There's something not right here.
Is there an English speaking country left on this bloody planet which has a sane government? I'm about ready to vote with my feet and quit the UK, assuming I can find anyone stupid enough to take me.
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.