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September 7th, 2008
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Call blocked

New police database will disable stolen cell phones

By Paul Voosen
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 7th, 2007 issue

Photo illustration by Christian O'Brien and Jan P&
The cell phone inhabits — along with its pocket brother, the MP3 player — a recently created space in consumers’ lives. Unlike other valuables, which can be safely stored at home, the value of the cell phone is tangled up in its small and mobile nature — the same nature that makes it an ideal target for theft.
So, if phones can’t be kept under lock and key, how can theft be deterred?
A joint effort between Czech police and the country’s three cell phone operators aims to offer a solution: Within six months, the police expect to launch a countrywide database of stolen phones, coordinating with all three providers (Telefónica O2, Vodafone and T-Mobile) to block access to their GSM networks from any blacklisted phone.
“This is going to bring a decline in business-oriented theft, when phones are stolen to sell at second-hand stores,” said Roman Skřepek, spokesman for the Police Presidium.
Similar databases exist in many other European Union countries, including the United Kingdom, France and the Nordic countries, said James Moran, a security expert with the GSM Association, a trade group representing 700 cell phone operators worldwide.
Last year, there were 19,549 reports of stolen cell phones in the country, according to the police, down from 25,842 in 2005 and 27,796 in 2004. At first blush this suggests a downward trend, but that is likely a false assumption, Skřepek said.
“Those statistics only include cell phones stolen whose worth is greater than 5,000 Kč ($230),” he said. “With phones getting cheaper to buy, they often don’t reach this plateau and so are not registered as criminal offences.”
No other statistics on cell phone theft in the country are kept, and so the true extent of theft remains as much a matter of conjecture as fact.
Hardwired
Cell phone crime falls into two typical categories: theft of service, when a thief uses the victim’s SIM card to make illegal calls, and theft of the actual handset. Since SIM cards are tied to individual providers, users have long been able to report their account stolen to their provider, which would then disable the SIM card — sometimes for a hefty fee.
Handsets, however, are designed to be operable among GSM networks, meaning that, once the provider disables the SIM, the phone can still be used with a different card and sold to a second-hand store at a cut-rate figure.
To combat this illegal recycling, cell phone manufacturers and providers designed the IMEI code, a serial number hardwired into all cell phones (the code of most phones can be brought up by punching *#06#).
IMEI specifications have existed since the 1990s, but, for a long time, their implementation was bungled, with manufacturers producing phones with duplicate codes and little security.
“Two or three years ago, it made almost no sense to block IMEI numbers because they were so easily changed,” said Martina Kemrová, spokeswoman for T-Mobile. But, thanks to revisions in technology, “it is now much more likely that an IMEI number will stay the same.”
Once the database is active, victims reporting phone theft who can prove ownership — keep your receipt — will have their phones’ IMEI codes added to the national database, which will be periodically updated through secure connections to the providers. The database will also be publicly available online through the Interior Ministry’s Web site.
All three providers have the technology to block IMEI numbers, though Telefónica O2 is the only company currently doing so, as it has since 2001, said Martin Žabka, spokesman for the company.
The 2005 Electronic Communications Act ordered that all Czech providers be capable of blocking IMEIs at police request, and Vodafone and T-Mobile came into compliance with this last year.
The companies are now waiting for the police to implement its side of the database, which is expected within the next half-year.
    
Bricked
Blocking IMEI numbers is a matter of deterrence and for such campaigns to be successful they need to be publicized, Moran said. It is important to remember that blacklisting constitutes “just one element of an overall strategy that requires the involvement and support of government and police.”
Jakub Hrabovský, spokesman for Vodafone, agrees and hopes that the police will run a public-information campaign once the database is active.
Another hope for a decline in cell phone theft is the sheer ubiquity of cheap yet quality phones, many of which can be had for a crown when users sign up for contracts with companies. This can lower demand for used handsets and, by extension, stolen handsets.
But, while cheap new phones abound, expensive and feature-rich smart phones are also growing in use, and these are likely to become highly targeted when the used-phone market bottoms out, Kemrová said. Joint-blocking IMEI numbers, so that the phones become inoperable bricks inside the country, could go a long way to controlling these crime rates.
Most cell phone theft comes from one-off pranksters or thieves, Skřepek said. Organized crime is not a factor, and there are no trucks exporting loads of stolen phones to other countries.
Also needed to complement IMEI blocking is a law that makes tampering with a phone’s IMEI a punishable crime, said Žabka. Many other countries, such as the United Kingdom, already have similar legislation on the books.
With activation of the database still months off, the police and operators can only provide advice to their customers on what to do to avoid theft.
“Carry your phone somewhere where it can’t be seen,” said Skřepek. “Don’t show it off. And always be aware of pickpockets on public transportation.”
“When you purchase a phone, keep all your paperwork,” Hrabovský said. “Only with that can you ask police to file charges.
“And save your contacts, all the information that your phone contains. It’s irreplaceable these days.”

Hela Balínová and Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Paul Voosen can be reached at pvoosen@praguepost.com


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