Interception laws will be tight
2006-05-23 11:51
Cape Town - Cellphone service providers who fail to obtain and keep information on their clients could be fined R100 000 for each day of non-compliance, according to draft new interception legislation introduced in parliament.
In turn, customers who sold or gave away their cellphones or SIM cards could be imprisoned for up to 12 months for failing to obtain and relay the recipient's personal information to a service provider.
The information obtained in this fashion would be stored on a central electronic database, making it easier for law enforcement agencies to trace all previous owners of a phone or SIM card, parliament's justice portfolio committee heard on Tuesday.
State law adviser Ina Botha told the committee the Bill amended existing legislation on the interception of communications as it applied to the cellphone industry.
It sought to replace the current paper-based information base of service providers Vodacom, MTN and CellC with a central electronic one.
It spells out more clearly what information is required to be stored, criminalises non-compliance, and sets out penalties.
- SAPA