NEW DELHI: In the backdrop of mobile phones having Indian SIM cards and UAE's Thuraya satellite phone used by Pakistani terrorists during Mumbai attack last week, the home ministry on Wednesday asked the department of telecommunication (DoT) to quickly devise a mechanism of a "strict consumer verification" exercise and formulate a comprehensive policy on "monitoring and intercepting" sat phones.
The ministry's concerns were conveyed to DoT after the issue came up for discussion in a high-level meeting chaired by home minister P Chidambaram who reviewed all aspects of telecom having security implications.
The issue of use of Chinese mobile phone handsets — which do not have International Mobile Equipment Identities (IMEI) — also came up for discussion. Since it is the IMEI number which mainly helps agencies to trace the handset user, the intelligence agencies had recently pitched for a ban on Chinese handsets.
The minister was, however, informed that DoT, taking such concerns in mind, has already "directed all the access service providers to make provision of Equipment Identity Registry (EIR) so that calls without IMEI or Electronic Serial Number (ESN) or those with IMEI or ESN with all zeros are not processed, and rejected".
Besides senior home ministry and DoT officials, the meeting was also attended by senior officers of IB, RAW and the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO). The NTRO keeps track of technological aspects of intelligence in coordination with other agencies.
Sources in the ministry said that DoT had proposed to set up a National Surveillance Grid to create a centralized communication monitoring agency. The Grid would help remove multiplicity of authorities in telecom/internet/Voice Over Internet Protocal monitoring exercises as currently it is being done by different agencies, they added.
At present, interception of sat phones is a big problem in India as none of the international operators have a hub here. Since these phones — provided by operators like UAE's Thuraya and a consortium led by Inmarsat — do not need interconnectivity with the network of any country's domestic network, they can be used anywhere in the world without any hitch.

Source : Net news