Law to Challenge Stolen Phone Trade
Thursday, 12 July, 2007
Law to Challenge Stolen Phone Trade
Thursday, 12 July, 2007
On June 29, the country’s parliament passed amendments to the criminal code which, if signed off by the president, will require network providers to render a stolen phone useless by blocking its international mobile equipment identity number or IMEI.
Every phone has a unique IMEI, a 15-digit number that appears on the network system whenever a call is made. Barring that number means that the phone can never be used again, regardless of whether the phone’s SIM-card has been changed.
The penalty for smuggling stolen phones into Kyrgyzstan varies from a fine to two years’ imprisonment – or five years if it is a gang of smugglers.
Yelena Truskovskaya, a senior detective with the Bishkek police, said, “Companies aren’t currently held accountable when they buy or sell phones. Anyone can buy a [trading] license and sell mobile phones – legal or stolen.”
NBCentralAsia experts warn that that legitimate phone users may suffer due to the technical problems behind this initiative. As Alexander Khodyrev, commercial director of the MegaCom mobile phone company, explained, hundreds or even thousands of phones on the same network can have the same IMEI code because mistakes are made when the code numbers are issued and also because there are many counterfeit phones on the market.
“When one IMEI code is blocked, several hundred honest subscribers can be blocked as well, although they have a legal right to use their property,” said Khodyrev.
Oleg Zherebko, executive director of the Association of Mobile Phone Companies, predicts that technical limitations will prevent the blocking scheme from working effectively in the near future. Network providers will have to install expensive equipment in each signal mast before they can identify and block IMEI numbers, and for those with nationwide coverage that means refitting over 200 relay stations.
Zherebko says that it would make more sense to catch people trying to import stolen phones. Most stolen phones in Kyrgyzstan come from Kazakstan, China, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Olga Serova, head of the legal department at the National Communications Agency, hopes that the new law will help curb the flow of stolen phones, although she would like to see it supplementary legislation requiring police and phone operators to cooperate.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
