Registration Required for South African Visitors

New legislation in South Africa could require all foreign visitors to register their mobile phones with the authorities when entering the country. Phone owners will be required to register their passport number and handset serial number (IMEI) under a provision in the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communications Related Information (Rica) Amendment Bill that South Africa's parliament is currently considering.

Failure to register a handset would result in it being blocked from the three GSM operators in the country.

What has alarmed the operators was a statment by Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange, that recording the details of phones owned by visitors was the correct interpretation of his department's intentions under the new law.

De Lange has not elaborated, but his media liaison officer, Zolile Nqayi told Business Day newspaper "One interpretation is that foreigners coming into the country with phones should not be allowed to use them until certain information has been captured. It's still in discussion and anything can happen."

Russia used to require handsets to be registered when entering the country, but that ended many years ago."

Posted to the site on 16th June 2006