By S. Raza Hassan
KARACHI: Cellphone jamming devices are being used across the city with little or no oversight from law enforcers or the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, it has emerged.
All users of jamming devices are required to obtain permission from the PTA before installing any such equipment, but it has emerged that not only is their data on these jammers incomplete, they also do not take action on facilities where the jamming of cellphone signals is occurring outside of the prescribed parameters (premises of the building) where it authorised.
Practically, cellphone GSM signal jamming devices are to be used to disable remote signals which could be used to detonate explosive devices. Vehicles fitted with such devices are part of the presidential and prime ministerial motorcades, for example.
In 2004, the PTA formulated a policy regarding the use of cellphone signal jammers to ensure that these devices were not misused to block cellphone communications outside the buildings where they were installed.
The opening paragraph of the PTA policy states: “Due to law and order and other security concerns, especially in the vicinity of commercial banks and other financial institutions, it seems imperative to allow the use of jammers under exceptional circumstances (i.e not as a matter of routine) to block cellular mobile communication in such a manner that the operation of the licensed cellular operators may not be affected.”
Under the policy, the operational range of cell phone jammers must not be more than 20 metres.” Jammers’ use in car theft on the rise
In practical use, while commercial banks and other financial institutions have mostly done away with cellphone jammers to help customers and staff, jammers are increasingly being used by criminal elements involved in car thefts, as a way of disabling car-tracking devices.
A well-placed officer of a law-enforcement agency told Dawn that neither regulators nor law enforcers had basic data about users of cellphone jamming devices.
Cellular service providers, however, say they can easily learn of and locate effective jamming devices, since their service is disrupted in their vicinity.
While it is not possible to obtain jamming devices over the counter in electronics market, well-placed market sources said the devices were not very difficult to obtain.
The Anti-Car-Lifting Cell (ACLC) of the Karachi police claim to have recovered around two dozen cellphone jamming devices of different types from the possession of various suspects involved in car thefts.
“The recovered devices vary in nature and frequencies, starting from hand-held devices to heavy devices having four antennas for the purpose of jamming different types of frequencies,” ACLC SSP Amin Yousafzai told Dawn.
However, he pointed out that none of the suspects they interviewed had purchased the devices in Karachi, but had obtained them from Quetta and Chaman.
Another official of the ACLC admitted that the recovery of tracking device-fitted vehicles had dropped drastically in recent times, while in the past almost all vehicles fitted with these devices were recovered by the police.
A prominent provincial minister of the PPP-led government, meanwhile, has come up with a novel use for cellphone jammers: he has installed them on the premises of his office in the Sindh Secretariat to discourage the use of cellphones by staff and visitors.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/12/2010
