Legislation that allows South Africa's police to monitor electronic communications is to be tightened up by an amendment bill to ensure that physical addresses registered by providers correspond to clients' cellphone users.<\/p>\n
The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Amendment Bill has been tabled in parliament. It follows on the act passed in 2002, but which came into effect in 2005. It is anticipated that the bill will become an act early next year.<\/p>\n
A draft bill was first referred to the national council of provinces last year, but technical changes had been made to include those living in informal settlements, into the net of people who need to be registered by service providers.<\/p>\n
The monitoring group, Sabinet Law, says that the act is "about to be amended" to include regulation which provides for registration of cellphones and SIM cards, "thereby relating ownership to identity documents".<\/p>\n
The group, headed by Patrick McLaughlin, says that at their own cost, service providers "will be asked to provide a system of information storage, giving full names, identity numbers and address to all subscribers".<\/p>\n
Any provider of telecoms must verify the details of their clients within 12 months.<\/p>\n
These include the MSISDN number; the cellphone number; the cellphone handset number; and the IMSI number, which is a number allocated to a SIM card for identification purposes.<\/p>\n
This detail must also correspond to the client's identity number.<\/p>\n
This broadens the scope of what is an identity number.<\/p>\n
The bill memorandum explains: "This is not only the number referred to as the identity number in a South African identity document, but also a passport number or a number which is issued on a document to a refugee in terms of section 30 of the Refugees Act of 1998."<\/p>\n
This will mean foreign visitors will need to inform authorities of their cellphone details and passport numbers or risk their service being blocked.<\/p>\n
Justice and constitutional development minister Bridgette Mabandla said last year that the bill would also apply to prepaid cellphone users.<\/p>\n
The amendment bill also requires that cellphone owners must inform the service provider when they pass on their phone or SIM card to someone outside their immediate family.<\/p>\n
Family members are defined as biologically, statutorily, customarily or religiously connected to a person. They can include a life partner or a caregiver in the case of an orphan.<\/p>\n
While the aim is to crack down on crime, the information that must be kept by providers does not include content, but the origin and destination of communication, the phone used and its location at the time, and the duration of the call.<\/p>\n
An MTN spokesperson declined to comment, while the Vodacom spokesperson could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n