Legality of unregistered mobile phones

ThreeLineWhip

Is it legal to have an unregistered phone in Ireland.

Is there any law that prohibits it?

ResearchWill

I am aware of no law that prohibits unregistered phones.

Grolschevik

ThreeLineWhip wrote: »

Is it legal to have an unregistered phone in Ireland.

Is there any law that prohibits it?

What do you mean by an unregistered phone? To work as a phone, it'll surely have to be registered with a service provider...

ThreeLineWhip

I mean a sim card that the network does not have a name and address for.

28064212

ThreeLineWhip wrote: »

I mean a sim card that the network does not have a name and address for.

No law against it AFAIK, and even if there was, it would be incredibly simple to get around it. However, I can't imagine a single purpose it would serve. If it was for illegal purposes, the tracking of the phone logs and location are far more useful and relatively easy to find out (with a warrant).

ThreeLineWhip

Thanks for your answer. It is purely for privacy purposes.

28064212

ThreeLineWhip wrote: »

Thanks for your answer. It is purely for privacy purposes.

Looking further, it seems I'm wrong. The EU Data Retention Directive (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006L0024:EN:HTML) states that the categories of data to be retained include:

(a) data necessary to trace and identify the source of a communication:

(1) concerning fixed network telephony and mobile telephony:

(i) the calling telephone number;
(ii) the name and address of the subscriber or registered user

As I said though, relatively trivial to get around. The other stuff that is kept (call logs, text logs, location) is far more of a privacy concern. Mobile phones simply aren't private

Tom Young

If its available in re. DR Directive.

Nothing in this Jurisdiction dealing with registration of prepaid phones.

Tom Young

You might remember attempts to register these phones, those attempts failed squarely.

The DR Directive is dealt with here by the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011.

ResearchWill

28064212 wrote: »

Looking further, it seems I'm wrong. The EU Data Retention Directive (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32006L0024:EN:HTML) states that the categories of data to be retained include:

As I said though, relatively trivial to get around. The other stuff that is kept (call logs, text logs, location) is far more of a privacy concern. Mobile phones simply aren't private

My reading of both the Directive and Act is that such data is to be retained, there does not seem to be an obligation to actually get the info in the first place.

Marcusm

Post Omagh, the UK required a name and post code to be collected for any SIM cards. I don't think the same was introduced in Ireland - certainly I have had SIM cards from Vodafone, and Meteor without providing details./ Subsequently, I have registered them to get additional credit - it might be a carrot not stick approach.

That being said, I can see the value in required registration, it's not really that intrusive.

ThreeLineWhip

I bought phones in the UK only last year and no details were requested.

Kristopherus

ThreeLineWhip wrote: »

I bought phones in the UK only last year and no details were requested.

Phones only or phones with simcards? I got an Orange simcard in the UK about 10 yrs ago and I had to give all my details to their CS before they would activate the sim.

ThreeLineWhip

I bought a Tesco £9 pay as you go phone in the uk. Paid cash and was asked nothing.