Re: Swedish Narcotics Police Demand Telephone Card Database

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

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At 03:36 PM 4/11/97 -0700, Martin Minow wrote:
>According to an article in the Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet
><http://www.svd.se/svd/ettan/ettan_97-04-11/narkotikapolisen.html>,
>the Stockholm narcotics police has asked the national police and
>State Prosecutor to require that purchasers of a new telephone
>card used for mobile telephones be registered, and that the police
>have access to the purchaser database. "Since the card is purchased
>anonymously, the owner cannot be determined, which makes wiretapping
>impossible." 

This week's Economist has an article on how the Italian national phone system
is making lots of money marketing GSM phones fed by cards that can be bought
for cash.  It expands the market for such phones.

I mentioned a few weeks ago, that Omnitel (a new PCS operator in the NYC
vicinity is selling (and heavily promoting) its no contract, no credit check,
card fed phone.  The phones and cards (after you buy the phone cards, you
call in the cards to an operator to add credit to the account) are available
all over the area.  The phone costs $99 (after rebate).

Yesterday, as I was walking past a Radio Shack, I noticed that they are also
selling a competing card fed PCS phone with the contradictory name of
Tracphone.

I love Capitalism.

It's easy to see why New York PCS operators would turn in this direction. 
They won expensive PCS franchises and have to spend big bucks to tower the
vicinity.  It would be nice for them if they could get an income stream to
help pay part of the interest.  But there's a problem.  Cellular providers
NYNEX/Bell Atlantic and AT&T are offering phones for $15/month which work
throughout the BOSWASH megaplex (and nationwide with roaming charges)
meanwhile the PCS vendors just cover NYC and Northern New Jersey.  They need
to offer something else.

The benefit of card fed phones to vendors is obvious.  Suddenly, the 20-40%
of the population that can't (or doesn't want to) qualify for a
credit-checked cellular account can just pony up the cash and walk out with
one.

A real privacy benefit as well.  If the authorities can't keep anonymous
people from getting accounts in such a regulated industry, it is hard to
imagine how they expect to bar anonymous accounts in an unregulated system
like the Net.

DCF

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