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What Law Require Prepaid Card To Be Registered

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9 controversies about obligatory prepaid registration

Past EDRi · February 8, 2017

"Register your prepaid and go complimentary calls/internet transfer/win a machine" – you tin hear from Polish telecom operators, as a reminder that all pre-paid SIM cards have to be registered past 1 February 2017. One could virtually think that this is only a nicely coordinated campaign of leading telecoms, aimed at collecting a bit more than data near their clients in commutation for a bonus.

A real stake in this data collection effort is to increase command over all users of telecommunication networks in Poland, with a particular focus on foreigners. The demand for more data came this fourth dimension not from the market but directly from the policing arm of the state. Indeed, in response to this measure being rolled out by restrictive regimes effectually the world, the GSM Clan has been very expert at pointing out the express value of this approach from a law enforcement perspective.

Obligatory registration of prepaid SIM cards was introduced in Poland by the controversial anti-terrorism police in June 2016. This law is based on the assumption that every foreigner may pose a threat to national security and, therefore, can be subjected to surveillance. Obligatory registration of SIM cards took effect on 1 February 2017. After that, all the unregistered cards have stopped working. All the same, this should non stop us from questioning the logic behind the new regulation and showing its consequences, also the unintended ones.

1. Why should I register my prepaid carte du jour?
This is the number one question on the lists of frequently asked questions (FAQ) at every telecom operator's website. Their respond is: because the anti-terrorism police force says then. But they do not answer why this obligation was introduced. Our reply is: because the Shine intelligence agencies want to have even more control, despite the consummate lack of empirical evidence that this mensurate has any meaningful benefit to crime-fighting.

two. How registering prepaid cards is going to facilitate the work of intelligence agencies?
The reasoning of the lawmakers was that registered cards are going to make information technology way easier to identify the owners of the numbers linked to the criminal activity, especially in the context of simulated bomb alarms. However, the registered owner can sell the card or pass information technology to somebody else, without obligation to update personal information in the operator's register. Engaging a number of intermediaries and leaving false traces will not be much of a claiming for a determined criminal. In brusque, if criminals have precautions, they tin can easily circumvent mandatory SIM registration. On the other hand, if they don't, metadata of mobile phones (especially call records and location data) mean that they tin can exist identified without mandatory registration.

3. Practice I accept to register a card in my own name?
No. You can use a card registered in someone else's name or pass a card registered in your name to some other person. You can buy an already registered card on an online auction website Allegro (even if its rules officially say this is non immune). Y'all can buy one in Frg or the Czechia, or let it to exist registered by anyone that will be open to doing you such a favour. It is besides relatively easy to register a number on somebody without this person even knowing it.

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iv. Is the obligatory registration going to help fighting terrorism?
In theory, registration of all SIM cards should limit the ability of anonymous communications related to criminal activity. But no criminal will annals the card in their own name, unless they want to be caught! Cecilia Malmström in her part as European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs said at that place is no testify that this is a successful measure to fight criminal offense. Even the British government, that is famously extreme in its data collection practices, thinks so too, and based on the detailed analyses carried out past intelligence agencies and security experts, decided not to introduce such regulation in the British law.

five. What consequence tin can I face up for selling registered SIM cards?
The minister for internal affairs, Mariusz Błaszczak, stated in the media that "those selling those cards tin can face legal consequences in the situation whereby these cards were used for a criminal activity". However, there are no legal sanctions for selling SIM cards.

6. Cards used in elevators and vending machines also have to exist registered. Why?
Both the Polish Part of Electronic Communications (UKE) and the Ministry building of Digital Agenda have recently pointed out that non merely phones only also machines – such equally vending machines and elevators – are using prepaid cards for automated communication with its operators. UKE clarified that "the master aim of the regulation it to increase the effectiveness of the Polish anti-terrorism system and the safety of Polish citizens. Information technology is, however, even in the colourful imagination of the UKE, unclear how registering a prepaid card in the vending machine is going to aid to catch terrorists.

7. What near the right to anonymous communication?
Forget about it. Smooth lawmakers believe that the convenience of intelligence agencies (if we generously believe that this demonstrably ineffective measure would really generate convenience) is much more than of import than primal rights, such equally the right to anonymous communication.

8. Is my personal data condom?
From the bespeak of view of information protection, registering cards at petrol stations, in banks, by snail mail or email, with a scan of your ID fastened, sounds like a joke. We should also be asking about safeguards preventing misuse of our data by the intelligence agencies. Most countries where registration of SIM cards is obligatory take in identify much stricter control mechanisms over how constabulary enforcement agencies admission and employ telecommunication information, including the personal information of menu owners. In Poland, this area of state activity is beyond any class of independent control.

9. Who is going to pay for information technology?
The lawmakers cunningly counted that the new obligation will non incur any costs for the public budget. This brunt is shifted to telecom operators and their clients, and information technology is obvious that the bill will be rather loftier. Aggressive marketing campaigns, the risk of losing the customers who do not register the number on fourth dimension, and building the whole network of registration points for SIM cards will represent a loftier cost, which will be transferred to the users.

9 controversies about obligatory prepaid registration (31.01.2017)
https://en.panoptykon.org/prepaid

GSM Clan: Mandatory registration of prepaid SIM cards: Addressing challenges through all-time practice (April 2017)
http://world wide web.gsma.com/publicpolicy/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/GSMA2016_Report_MandatoryRegistrationOfPrepaidSIMCards.pdf

Poland adopted a controversial anti-terrorism law (22.06.2016)
https://en.panoptykon.org/articles/poland-adopted-controversial-anti-terrorism-police force

(Contribution by Anna Obem, with co-authors Wojciech Klicki, Katarzyna Szymielewicz and Małgorzata Szumańska, EDRi member Panoptykon Foundation, Poland)

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What Law Require Prepaid Card To Be Registered,

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