[Infowarrior] - UK: Passport required to buy cellphone

[Richard Forno]

(Another stupid security kibuki theater item - they assume that  
'terrorists' will ONLY use a cellphone. --rf)

Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones
A British passport
David Leppard
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece

Everyone 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.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain’s estimated  
40m prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by  
customers who do not wish to give their names, addresses or credit  
card details.

The pay-as-you-go phones are popular with criminals and terrorists  
because their anonymity shields their activities from the authorities.  
But they are also used by thousands of law-abiding citizens who wish  
to communicate in private.

The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the  
government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge  
database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and  
telephone records of everyone in Britain.

The “Big Brother” database would have limited value to police and MI5  
if it did not store details of the ownership of more than half the  
mobile phones in the country.

Contingency planning for such a move is already thought to be under  
way at Vodafone, where 72% of its 18.5m UK customers use pay-as-you-go.

The office of Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, said it  
anticipated that a compulsory mobile phone register would be unveiled  
as part of a law which ministers would announce next year.

“With regards to the database that would contain details of all mobile  
users, including pay-as-you-go, we would expect that this information  
would be included in the database proposed in the draft Communications  
Data Bill,” a spokeswoman said.

Simon Davies, of Privacy International, said he understood that  
several mobile phone firms had discussed the proposed database in  
talks with government officials.

As The Sunday Times revealed earlier this month, GCHQ has already been  
provided with up to £1 billion to work on the pilot stage of the Big  
Brother database, which will see thousands of “black boxes” installed  
on communications lines provided by Vodafone and BT as part of a pilot  
interception programme.

The proposals have sparked a fierce backlash inside Whitehall. Senior  
officials in the Home Office have privately warned that the database  
scheme is impractical, disproportionate and potentially unlawful. The  
revolt last week forced Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, to delay  
announcing plans for the database until next year.