On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:59 PM, Gituma Nturibi
<gnturibi@gmail.com> wrote:
As of the 1st of this month anybody buying a pre-paid line in South Africa will have to provide proof of address- even tourists buying one for the short stay. Existing subscribers will have to register too or risk disconnection but the deadline has not been set.
They say it's to control organised crime and now your phone can be tapped if a court order is given. Opinion is divided but is this a good or bad thing? On the outside they look justified but it's can lead to invation of privacy. One of the selling points of prepaid is ease of connection and annonymity. Any plans for the same in Kenya,
I think this is a good thing for security reasons. For privacy, you can always use other means of communication. If you think your phone is being monitored, you can always organize to use someone else's phone. There are no shortages of ways to get around being monitored! If you get really paranoid, you can use other means of communication.
If this were to be implemented in Kenya, the "organized crime" folks can still beat the system on it. They can always use stolen/forged/fake documents to register their phones. I don't see how the guys selling the SIM cards will be able to verify the information being presented unless we have a central database of the citizens like they have in the United States (or elsewhere) where you need to use your Social Security number for most transactions. In KE, there is no _primary key_ to identify someone.
For foreigners, didn't we have the Arturs traveling on fake passports, even?