UK: Passports Will Be Needed to Buy Mobile Phones

["Paul Ferguson" <fergdawgster () gmail com>]

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Via The Times Online.

[snip]

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their
identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively
the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of
identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks
the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in
Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and
crime. Whitehall officials have raised the idea of a register containing
the names and addresses of everyone who buys a phone in recent talks with
Vodafone and other telephone companies, insiders say.

The move is targeted at monitoring the owners of Britain's estimated 40m
prepaid mobile phones. They can be purchased with cash by customers who do
not wish to give their names, addresses or credit card details.

[snip]

More:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4969312.ece

This is perhaps the craziest f'ing thing I have ever heard of...

- - ferg

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--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
Engineering Architecture for the Internet
fergdawgster(at)gmail.com
ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/
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