Desk Report: Law enforcement agencies will get access to present and permanent personal database of the country’s 151 million mobile phone subscribers from the next month, reports Daily Sun.
The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications took the decision to allow law enforcers the access at a meeting last week in a move to combat anti-state activities, sources said. Despite several moves, country’s major cell phone operators did not provide personal data of mobile phone users to law enforcement agencies over last three years, saying they can easily get access by using their National ID card.
But now they have agreed to prepare searchable database of mobile phone users in the server for the law enforcing agencies taking into consideration the increase in criminal activities through mobile data.
“We’ll prepare database on searchable format as per directive of the ministry,” chief corporate affairs officer of Grameenphone Ltd Mahmud Hossain told the daily sun.
Hossain, who is serving the country’s leading mobile operator with around seven crore-subscriber base, said new subscribers will be brought under electronic database from the next month.
Now, the law enforcement agencies are getting only NID data through picture format or hard copy format.
As per the decision, the cell-phone operators will also collect personal information through Electronic Subscriber Acquisition Form (E-SAF) as the law enforcement agencies will easily get database.
The meeting also asked the operators to save four types of data, including date of birth, NID, present address of subscribers.
The data will help the law enforcing agencies to easily trace any suspect.
Besides, cell-phone operators will also preserve the personal database of subscribers’ hard-copy format.
Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mutafa Jabbar chaired the meeting at Gana Bhaban while prime minister’s ICT adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Posts and Telecom secretary Shyam Sunde Sikder, BTRC chairman Md Jahurul Haque and chief executive officers of mobile operators attended it on August 1.
Recently, the law enforcing agencies have collected present and permanent data on individuals several times in different cities across the country.
“We will now be able to easily detect any individuals involved in criminal activities through use of cell phone,” a spokesperson of the police media wing said.
The minister at a programme on August 6 said the government will not allow anyone to use data on social sites, including Facebook, if it becomes threat to state safety and public security.