Mobile Phone Register

Via The Englishman, I note this Times article.

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.

It seems that not a day passes without these control freaks whittling away at yet another liberty, all in the name of an over hyped threat of terror. Of course, to these people, privacy is the same thing as having something to hide. And, I’ll take the very small chance of being blown up against the constant surveillance of the state any day. They are the threat, not the terrorists, who, frankly, are far and few between.

I do not use pay as you go. I tried it briefly, but found that having to keep topping up – particularly at a point when I needed to make an urgent call, made it too inconvenient. And, frankly, it was costing me more than my contract. So, for what it is worth, O2 know exactly who I am and (for the moment) where I live.

That said, I don’t buy my phones from Hight Street shops. I use a SIM only contract with O2 and then shop on the open market for the handset. It may cost a little more, but I have a wider choice and the phone isn’t locked to a carrier. Therefore, should I decide to move to another carrier, I don’t have to get the phone unlocked. My present phone was purchased through Amazon because they had what I wanted at the right price. How, I wonder, will the passport idea affect that kind of trading? Also, what about the terrorists and criminals who want to maintain their anonymity? Will they not merely circumvent the system by buying abroad? I would.

The move aims to close a loophole in plans being drawn up by GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, to create a huge database to monitor and store the internet browsing habits, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain.

If they go ahead with this, I am more than likely to use my current French SIM (despite it being PAYG). I’ll install PGP and encourage my correspondents to do the same. I will also minimise my electronic communications – particularly for private correspondence. In short, I will do all in my powers to prevent this power hungry, intrusive Stalinist state apparatus spying on me. What I do, where I go, with whom I communicate is my business and nothing whatsoever to do with the state and I intend to keep it that way. They work for me, not the other way around. I will do all in my power to keep them from poking about in my private affairs.

Contingency planning for such a move is already thought to be under way at Vodafone, where 72% of its 18.5m UK customers use pay-as-you-go.

Maybe those of you with Vodafone should switch – and tell the bastards why. Unfortunately, not enough will do it to have the desired effect. Such is the apathy that pervades our sheep-like society. This, for example in the comments on the Times article from Kelly in London:

It already happens in many EU and other European countries. No law abiding person is complaining there. What have you got to hide (or complain about) if you’re not doing anything wrong?

And matt in Bristol:

Sounds sensible to me.

Kelly in London and matt in Bristol are not only historically ignorant fuckwits, they are part of the problem. They may not care about their privacy – after all, it won’t be them who will suffer, will it? Ah, yes, the Devil’s Kitchen first rule of totalitarianism strikes again:

Those who advocate restrictions in people’s choices always assume that they will be the ones who decide what those choices are to be. Those who advocate totalitarianism, of however mild or serious a flavour, always see themselves as the ones in power.

And that, my friends, is at the heart of the matter. The sheeple in this country, the Kellys and the matts do not see themselves as being the victims of this oppression because they are good people, law abiding people, who do what the state decrees. It could never happen to them. When it does, it will come as a nasty and well deserved shock. A pox on all of them.