The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) Monday launched a web portal for Delhi that would enable users to track and block mobile phones that are either stolen or get lost. The services, launched initially for Mumbai in September this year, will be rolled out pan-India in 2020, Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.
The portal, backed by the Central Equipment Identity Register, will help users facilitate blocking of stolen or lost mobile phones across mobile networks, Telecom Secretary Anshu Prakash said.
“They can go to the portal and register their complaint, along with which they will also have to upload the police complaint and their own ID proof. Based on this, the lost mobile will be blocked. Also, if someone uses it, the same can be traced based on the tower signals so the police can also recover the device,” he added.
Nearly 40,000 mobile phones are stolen by miscreants in Delhi every year. Once stolen or lost, grey marketers reprogramme the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of the handset, which results in cloning of the unique number. This in turn results in multiple handsets having the same IMEI number.
Earlier, if such an IMEI was blocked, there was a possibility of a number of mobile handsets being put out of service, Prakash said, explaining that with the new software, only the individual phone that has been stolen will be blocked and traced.
The launch of the web portal, attended by Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, and police commissioner Amulya Patnaik, also saw Prasad criticising Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s decision to install close circuit television (CCTV) cameras all over Delhi.
In his veiled attack, Prasad said that speaking as the Law Minister, the question over privacy of individuals would arise as the images captured by CCTV cameras were likely to stay in the database forever.
“These are issues which need to be analysed in a healthy, robust, democratic manner to find a solution,” Prasad said.
