{"id":8681,"date":"2009-07-07T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-07T09:17:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-07-07T11:17:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-07T09:17:00","slug":"are-your-mobile-calls-private","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/8681-are-your-mobile-calls-private.html","title":{"rendered":"Are your mobile calls private?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act<\/a> (RICA) will come into effect for mobile phones from 1 July 2009.  <\/p>\n

The Act requires mobile operators Cell C, MTN and Vodacom, as well as other service providers such as Nashua Mobile, Autopage and Virgin Mobile South Africa, to register on secure databases the identities, physical address and cellular phone numbers of new and existing customers who buy SIM cards.<\/p>\n

All cellphone subscribers, both Prepaid and Contract, will be required to show proof of identity as well as present a utility bill to show proof of residence to RICA agents in order to be registered.  <\/p>\n

In theory the Act will assist the police in its crime fighting activities, but many consumers feel that prepaid SIM registrations will not have a significant impact on crime in South Africa.  Some observers have also raised concerns about privacy when it comes to cellular calls.<\/p>\n

According to World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck consumers have every right to be concerned about the privacy of the mobile phone calls, as not enough effort has been made so far to educate the public, resulting in confusion and uncertainty. <\/p>\n

“The Act allows a wide range of law enforcement agents, under a wide range of circumstances, to access archived information about calls as well as to listen in on calls. Mostly, this requires an application to a judge, but the fine print suggests that, where law enforcement officers believe they need that access urgently to prevent bodily harm, they can bypass the usual process,” explains Goldstuck.<\/p>\n

The Act states that “it is not reasonably practicable to make an application in terms of section 16(1) or 13jl) for the issuing of an interception direction or an oral interception direction; and the sole purpose of the interception is to prevent such bodily harm, any communication or may orally request a telecommunication service provider to route duplicate signals of indirect communications specified in that request to the interception centre designated therein.” <\/p>\n

“The interception is only justified where it is intended to prevent bodily harm, and the Government has assured the public it won’t abuse the provisions, but not enough has been done to communicate the purpose, the process and the circumstances to the public,” Goldstuck said.<\/p>\n

Goldstuck points out that the law in itself protects privacy, but does not indicate a process for grievances regarding violation of privacy.<\/p>\n

Goldstuck further warned that there is every possibility that the RICA will result in private conversations being listened to, although the intention is for it to happen in the context of reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Intercepting cellphone calls is however nothing new, says Graham de Vries, the general manager for legal and regulating authorities at MTN.  IOL Technology quotes De Vries as saying that cellphone calls have been subject to interception by law enforcement agencies, in possession of a court order, since the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act was promulgated in 2002. <\/p>\n

“It was considered impossible to intercept calls on the GSM system used by South African cellular operators, because of the complex algorithms used for radio frequency hopping between cells in the network.  But when a court order for specified numbers, obtained from retired Judge Swart by law enforcement agencies, was brought to a network operator, the interception system used was simple,” de Vries is quoted as saying.<\/p>\n

“A number would be typed into a software system at an operator’s office under strict controls. Calls to and from that number would be routed to monitoring stations at the law enforcement agency.”<\/p>\n

RICA and privacy concerns<\/a><\/strong> – give your views<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Concerns over cellphone tapping and mobile call privacy after RICA kicks in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cellular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}