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Tuesday, July 22, 2003
ID to buy a cellphone in Newfoundland
Brian Micklethwait (London)
(3)   Civil liberties

The war against Canadian drugs has caused the RCMP in Newfoundland to want to make the purchasers of cellphones present ID, including a photo, when they buy them.

Sgt. Greg Smith says officers have a hard time investigating some drug dealers because they can buy many phones and remain anonymous.

Whatever next? Buying a phone without being anyone in particular. It has to stop.

One recent investigation lasted more than five months and cost more than $100,000. Police say it was because the suspect used 11 different phones, none of which was in his name.

The police want to be able to monitor the calls and find out who's on them. That's easier when people are using regular telephones that have known owners and fixed addresses.

Stores don't require the name of a cellphone purchaser.

Retailers say they have no reason not to sell phones to anyone who can afford one, and they're under no obligation to ask for identification.

Funny how tradesmen threatened with a change in the law just announce that the existing law is whatever it is, as if that is, in and of itself, an argument for it to stay like that. They point out that as the law stands they're not breaking it, so they're law abiding, so … well, so, they ought to be able to carry on doing like they always have, what with them being so law abiding and all. It's almost as if they think that no one's allowed to change a law until the existing one is being universally broken. Idiots.


Comments

The reason that fixed line phones are easy to trace has little to do with ID, and everything to do with the fact that they are physically tied to real estate. This phone is physically situated on 23 Brittania Street, and it isn't going to move. Cellphones are not physically tied anywhere. Phones that are on contract are clearly tied to an actual person by the billing system, but prepay (pay as you go) phones are not. If someone leaves their phone in the street, I can pick it up and start using it, and I can walk into a store and pay for my calls with cash without identifying myself. As long as this is so, then criminals are going to be able to use cellphones without restriction. Forcing the original buyer to produce ID isn't going to help.

Posted by: Michael Jennings on July 22, 2003 10:19 AM

In fact, all this law will do (if passed) is create an instant grey market in pay-as-you-go mobile phones. No self respecting criminal is going to use a mobile phone with their name on it for a crime and so the practical upshot is that the privicy of lawful citizens has been eroded a little bit more. As usual.

AGL

Posted by: Adam Langley on July 22, 2003 09:56 PM
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