HC Deb 01 February 2002 vol 379 cc572-3W
Mr. Wyatt

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will compel mobile telephony companies to register the user's home address, e-mail and landline telephone number on their SIM cards. [28951]

Mr. Denham

[holding answer 21 January 2002]: The Government believe that valid registration can help combat mobile phone theft by identifying the customer with his or her phone in order to authorise the blacklisting of stolen SIM cards or, where technically possible, the disabling of the stolen handset itself. It is already the case that contract phone users are required by all mobile phone operators to register their details and that the Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card inside each mobile phone identifies the user with a full name, address and landline number (if available).

Registration of pre-pay mobile phones is not at present compulsory. This is partly due to the European Community Communications Data Protection Directive 97/66 which encourages the development of telecommunications service options which allow anonymous or strictly private access, and also because compulsory registration may disadvantage low income users, who may be of no fixed abode. Orange is the only operator to require registration details from its pre-pay customers. We are encouraging the other major operators, which all have voluntary registration schemes for pre-pay customers, to enhance take-up of these schemes. We will keep the need for legislation under review on this and other measures.