The Government Wants to Launch this to Help Phone Owners. Good Idea?

A system that can make stolen handphones unusable three hours after being reported missing is expected to be introduced in early November.

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Even changing the SIM cards will not reactivate them. The system is part of a government crime-prevention initiative to reduce phone thefts.

Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) monitoring and enforcement division head Zulkarnain Mohd Yasin said the telcos were ready to implement the system, though it still needed some fine-tuning.

“We are working on the security protocols and detailed implementation of the project,” he said when contacted.

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According to MCMC statistics, Malaysia has 42.6 million cellular telephone subscriptions as of the second quarter of this year.

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Once the system was up and running, customers only needed to inform their respective telcos if they lost their mobile phones. Also, it was not necessary for a police report to be lodged.

The telco would notify MCMC, which would then check its central database containing a list of 15-digit IMEI (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity) numbers shared by Malaysia’s telcos.

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The operators had been told to instal an Equipment Identity Register (EIR) so that the 15-digit International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI) code that is unique to every phone can be blacklisted if the device is reported stolen.

MCMC, Zulkarnain said, was still figuring out what the process would be if a lost phone was found by police or a telco. He said MCMC had notified the telcos of the phone blocking move on April 13.

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