Are there loopholes in Telecommunications Act?

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Police announced that the mandatory registration of cell phones begins on October eleventh. The announcement caught many by surprise because it was not contemplated in the Telecommunication Act which became law last December. Government is saying that the cell registration is a tool to fight crime, but many fear that it will go beyond that and there are loopholes in the legislation. Although the Telecommunications Act provides for the Minister of Telecommunications to make regulations for registration of cell phones, the retention of data like text messages, and numbers called can only be done if regulations are issued by the Minister. To date no such regulations have been put in place, but the Government is insisting that mandatory registration should begin in a matter of days. Attorney Dean Molina, an expert at telecoms law and Carlo Mason, this morning answered questions on the telecoms act as well as the cell registration.

Dean Molina, Attorney

“This registration of phones is separate—there’s nothing in this act that makes that and I haven’t seen what is now being put in place. It’s probably going to be…”

Marleni Cuellar

“It’s being called a mandatory registration.”

Dean Molina

“So there’s probably going to be a statutory instrument that’s going to be passed to bring that into effect, perhaps under this telecommunications act but this act does not address the registration of prepaid phones. If I were to criticize the Interception of Communication Act for one major flaw, it would be the fact that there is no provision of this act for the destruction of recordings after they have been used or if they are not used. So there’s no mechanism in place to suggest what happens if you get the impression that there’s multitudes of tapes from people. There’s nothing that mandates anyone to destroy that if it’s not used.”

Carlo Mason, Attorney

“Even if the judge decides that the order for entry, the entry warrant or the interception direction should be terminated, the fact remains that that data that has been recorded or gleaned is still there.”

Marleni Cuellar

“So there’s no stipulation that says get rid of it, nobody else can hear it.”

Carlo Mason

“There’s nothing that clearly states it must be destroyed.”

Dean Molina

“So you’d have issues of third party privacy rights to deal with.”

Channel 5

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Attorneys say Phone Registration won’t be a deterrent to crime

In respect of phone registration, the attorneys concluded that it won’t be a deterrent to crime because criminals will find ingenious ways to beat the system.

Dean Molina, Attorney

“To me the prepaid registration system is a waste of time. That is not for me to argue, I think the phone companies are to argue it. But I can tell you at least five reasons why that’s a waste of time.”

Marleni Cuellar

“And foreign sim cards can work in Belize as well.”

Dean Molina

“That’s one of them. That’s obviously one of them; roaming. If I want to make a phone call and I know that my prepaid sim card is registered, how important is that crime to me? The system is so organized that I can get a roaming sim card. I can go further. You can make calls from Sams and the mall in Chetumal. Vice versa, you can make calls using a Mexican prepaid phone well into our borders and the same thing from Melchor. In fact, up to last year I don’t know if it still continues but you could buy prepaid sim cards from Melchor and use it in Belize so if I really want to make that call I will do it. There’s internet telephony, I can make a call using that. There are so many other things; I have said pay phones. And for someone who has been in the telecoms industry for twenty years, I could tell you that when it all started, it started from your home phones when it was analog phones, when nobody was able to identify who made that call. Once you went to the digital age, the threatening calls went to pay phones. Once you moved to prepaid, the threatening calls moved to prepaid but there’s nothing to say that the criminal won’t come up with something else. So in my view it won’t achieve what they’re trying to achieve from it.”

Later in the newscast, we’ll tell you how one telephone company is preparing to take on the phone registration.

Channel 5

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SMART ready to register phones in accordance with new law

As you are aware, the government is regulating ownership of cellular phones. That means that everyone in your family who owns a cell phone will need to register it, whether or not that person is a minor or adult. The consequence of not registering will be disconnection. The rule applies to both Belize Telemedia Limited’s Digicell service and SpeedNet’s Smart service. With the registration of phones soon to kick in, News Five spoke to Ian Courtenay, Smart’s Public Relations Officer, about how the transition will be applied to its customers.

Ian Courtenay, Public Relations Officer, SMART

“SMART was made aware of this requirement that would be coming in from the P.U.C. so that we have put in place for a little while now the registration of all new customers. We already registered our postpaid customers because of the credit that we give out to them, but the prepaid; we have started to register customers when they come in. So we have a procedure in place that is already being used. The trick of the matter is to get all of the customers who are out there to come in and register because as you know one of the biggest requirements is proof of identity; you know social security card that we will have to keep on file.”

Jose Sanchez

“Now an issue could be, what could you do about phones that are already out there; that you don’t know of? Is it easy to disconnect? After a six months period the government is saying that they will have these numbers disconnected. Do you know what phones are active?”

Ian Courtenay

“Well yes as a general rule, we are aware of what customers because if a phone isn’t used for a specific period of time, we will disconnect and put the number back into our tool. Technically, it is not a challenge to do that and we have the ability to send messages out to our customers informing them that with this new requirement, you would have to come in. And we have put plans in place to try and give incentives for our customers to come in. but I must say that this is something that has been referred to our lawyers and I know there has been correspondence between the ministry and our executive managers as to the authority under which this information si to be shared and given out. Although we will obey whatever laws are put in place, we just want to be sure that the rights of customers are protected and we don’t infringe on our customers rights.”

Jose Sanchez

“How long should this process take if you just come in with your phone and an I.D.?”

Ian Courtenay

“It should take nothing more than five minutes. We will be setting up; once the law is put in place and it becomes mandatory, we will set up a specific desk so that customers won’t have to wait in line behind customers who are actually purchasing phones. To just come in and we need to photocopy an I.D. and put the name to a number. So that will be a short process.”

Jose Sanchez

“Off the top of your head, do you know how many customers SMART has within prepaid and postpaid?”

Ian Courtenay

“Oh well, we are talking over a hundred thousand customers.”

At the end of the six-month registration period, which would be in April 2012, all unregistered phones will be disconnected.

Channel 5

Telemedia Complies with Mandatory Number Registration

The Government of Belize has passed a law which mandates that all Telecom providers in Belize must comply with the law governing mandatory number registration. The Telecommunications Act Edition 2002 Section 44 (5) requires that all cell phone numbers, whether Pre-paid or Post-paid are tied to a person, thus, establishing ownership of said number.

Following the press release issued last week by the Ministry of Police and Public Safety dated September 27, Telemedia as a responsible and law abiding corporate citizen will comply with this law and will ensure that all encompassing parameters are fulfilled. Effective October 11th, the Company will require that all existing and new cell phone numbers are registered through the new Number Registration process.

Customers are asked to visit any of our Customer Service Centers countrywide to register their cell phone number. Registering your number is simple! Present your SIM card for verification of the number and a valid identification card which includes a Social Security Card, Driver’s License or Passport. Our trained Customer Service Representatives will take care of documenting the relevant details.

Customers are advised that registering your number will provide the following benefits:

*If your phone is lost or stolen, you can call 119 and report your loss. Once this is done, our Customer Service Representative will proceed to cease service on your number.

*Once this process is complete, you can visit the nearest Customer Service Center on the following business day and have your number reprogrammed unto a new SIM. It’s that easy!

*Once the SIM number is made inactive, your credit will also be protected. The credit value on your SIM at the time of reporting your loss will be returned when your number is reprogrammed.

*It is Important to report any loss of number immediately.

Customers are advised that non-compliance to registering your number within the six months registration period stipulated by the Government of Belize will result in the deactivation of service. Telemedia Customers are encouraged to visit the nearest Customer Service Center and register your number during the given six month window to ensure uninterrupted service.

Please contact Customer Service at 0-800-CALL-BTL for further information and assistance. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

http://AmbergrisToday.com

Phone Registration Going Along Briskly

Phone registration started today in earnest at Telemedia and SMART. As we've reported, government has announced that it intends to institute a 9 year old law which requires that all cellular phone numbers be registered to a duly identified name.

We stopped in at both phone companies to see how it was going:..

Anjali Vasquez, BTL Public Relations Manager "You bring in your SIM card, you bring in your valid ID and yourself - your person and that's it, our customer service rep. does the rest. It's absolutely free so, at the end of the day it takes about 10 minutes to do."

Ian Courtenay, SMART Public Relations Manager
"It's free of cost to the customer and a customer walking in not meeting a line, it takes nothing more than 5 minutes its simply having the phone itself with them so that we can take the electronic serial number of the phone if necessary and their ID, once they have that ready we photocopy it and fill out the necessary information, it takes nothing more than 5 minutes. My understanding is the regulation is being given a grace period of 6 months so that will take it to March 15th, 2012 will be the deadline and according to the Minister responsible we will be instructed to any numbers that have not been registered are to be turned off."

Anjali Vasquez, BTL Public Relations Manager
"Since the inception of prepaid numbers they have been anonymous and now we are asking our entire customer which is our larger customer base to come in and register. For the beginning, for the first six months we anticipate there will be an influx of people but from this day forward anybody who buys an new number has to already register. The benefit of registering your number is that it then belongs to you, if you lose your phone for instance or it's stolen and you report it right away we can then hold that number for you and any credit that you might have had at the time of it being stolen and your reporting it, we can hold on to that credit for you."

Ian Courtenay, SMART Public Relations Manager
"We have checked with our attorneys to ensure that nothing we are doing will infringe upon the rights of our customers. The registration of the numbers perse is not necessarily a strange or devious thing because postpaid customers it happen anyways, the thing that concern customers more is that they have been told that we have to save information - the customers personal records, their calling activities, their texting activities and so on. That is of more concern to us and to our customers, of course the cost to the company of doing that also increases the because if we are forced to save all that information for all our customers indefinitely or for an extended period of time that's storage - the storage devices needs to keep that information. The company will have to ensure that we have sufficient storage facilities, so it does create a cost to the company and when it becomes clearer of what the intention is and for long this information has to be stored, we can then make an assessment of what this piece of legislation will cost the company."

Anjali Vasquez, BTL Public Relations Officer
"The concern that the phone being tapped, that something that the company does not exercise, so really and truly it is so that your number has an owner, there are all these numbers out there and there is no number to that number so now that the number is registered it belongs to you the individual."

You have until March 15th. to register your phone and if you don't do it by then, you risk disconnection. According to the phone companies' figures, there are approximately more than 250 thousand prepaid cell phones in the country.

Channel 7

I registered my prepaid sim with BTL a year ago. Will I need to do it again?

I just called BTL and they told me I will not have to register again. Good News! They also told me that Friday will be Double and Triple Up Day. Great News!

Just to clarify, only locally sold SIM cards and locally recognised CDMA (SMART) phones need to be/can be registered. I enquired whether my foreign SIM cards would be denied access when the block is instituted, and both BTL and SMART said they won't be. It remains to be seen whether that's so, but they aren't permitting registration of foreign cards, even though they recognise that their use drives a coach and horses through the stated purpose of compulsory registration (which is certain knowledge of any person who makes a phone call, as a weapon against crime).