New Zealand Considers Registration for All PrePay Phone Users

New Zealand's police have called for all PrePay phones to be registered by the operators - citing the usual reasons of preventing crimes.

Detective Senior Sergeant Darrin Thomson, of the Wellington metro crime unit, said the phones provided a "significant challenge" for police and requiring people to provide identification to buy one would help catch criminals. "The use of prepaid cellular phones is a common use amongst the criminal fraternity, particularly at the higher level, and anything that would help us thwart that anonymity would be fabulous," he told The Dominion Post.

Vodafone told the New Zealand Herald that it would support a government mandated registration for all PrePay subscribers, while Telecom New Zealand said it would be open to discussing the issue.

This not the first time the police have tried to involve themselves in mobile phone tracking. Earlier this year, Police Association president Greg O'Connor called on the operators to start achiving all SMS messages sent to their subscribers so that the police could then study them after a crime had been committed.

On the web: New Zealand Herald - The Dominion Post

Posted to the site on 28th October 2008