7 ms·
it won't stop people getting multiple sim cards and registering those under different names
by crunchiebones 7y ago
it won't stop people getting multiple sim cards and registering those under different names
- looeee 7y agoThere's quite a few countries where you need to show a passport to register a sim card. Not sure if Austria is one.
- citeguised 7y agoIn Austria and Germany you can't get any SIM without ID as of now.
- rmu09 7y agoSo if you are a criminal that needs disposable SIM cards you just pay some cash-strapped person to get a bunch of prepaid ones for you.
- sfifs 7y agoThe point is you have a path to trace if needed. Say some criminal has done that, they've established some kind of contact with the "cash strapped person" to do so - either electronically or in person. Electronic traces are pretty feasible for major nation states to uncover since they're ingesting packet traffic metadata from the whole internet traffic of countries. In-person traces can often be covered by surveillance camera records etc etc. Once there is a point of entry, there is usually a path for entities with governmental powers to investigate.
- codedokode 7y agoIf you are a criminal, then you can just buy SIM cards from someone or from country that doesn't require indetification.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoDo they also make it illegal to sell SIMs between private parties?
- sim_card_map 7y agoI made a map with all European countries requiring an ID: https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/9ziqfi/european_countries_requiring_registration_of/ https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/9ziqfi/european_cou...
- anticensor 7y agoTurkey goes further and requires registration of phones, too.
- AdrianB1 7y agoTurkey is not an European country. Having a few percents of the territory in Europe does not move you to Europe.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- the_duke 7y agoSince late year, SIM cards require registration with your real name (in Austria). Of course you could still get your hands on one registered to another name, but it's no longer trivial to get an anonymous card here.
- jeltz 7y agoYou can just get them from other countries like Sweden who allow anonymous SIM cards.
- bkolobara 7y agoTo get a sim card (even prepaid) in Austria you need to provide a valid ID/passport. If it's not an Austrian/German/Swiss ID you will need to go in person to activate your sim card. This would make it really difficult for someone to manage a few accounts.
- the_mitsuhiko 7y agoYou can buy sim cards on amazon from other EU countries.
- lazyjones 7y agoSo tell me how this will work. Will you swap SIM cards just to post anonymously sometimes and let the telecom providers (among others) find out what your other SIM cards are through your device ID? Or will you get a SIM card from another country to use exclusively and pay roaming costs / live with a worse data plan in Austria? People apparently forget that telecoms providers cooperate with authorities, new legislation is planned for this too.
- yaris 7y agoI cannot say for sure but as I remember EU countries eliminated roaming charges, even for prepaid. OTOH there are not so many EU countries that sell prepaid without ID.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tasubotadas 7y agoRoaming costs are basically non-existant these days in the EU. For me it is cheaper to use internet through roaming than buying local plan.
- lazyjones 7y ago
- superwayne 7y agoIt's not yet clear (at least to the public) how the registration will actually work on a technical level. I think the idea is that there will be third party services who are responsible for validating the identity of a user (similar to what banks use for KYC purposes). Users could identify themselves via different means, e.g. by providing their phone number or by simply uploading an ID. But that's all speculation on my side.
- codedokode 7y agoThe easiest way is when the user provides their phone number and confirms it by receiving a SMS. That's how users of public WiFi points are identified in Russia and how users of IM programs are supposed to be identified in near future.
- lazyjones 7y agoIf you're thinking about fake names, you'll get problems trying to register your SIM cards at the telecoms provider, they do ID checks now.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chmod775 7y agoThere was a practice in Germany where people traded registered pre-paid SIM cards openly on a website created for that purpose - which was perfectly legal[1]. However they stopped when a court shot down the surveillance law that made people concerned in the first place[2]. If Austrians are even half as privacy-conscious as Germans, expect much of the same happening. 1: https://datenschmutz.net/anonym-kommunizieren-simkarten-tauschen/ https://datenschmutz.net/anonym-kommunizieren-simkarten-taus... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_retention#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_retention#Germany
- lazyjones 7y ago> If Austrians are even half as privacy-conscious as Germans, expect much of the same happening. Possibly among groups of people who regularly break the law. I can't see a normal person willingly accepting this sort of risk (e.g. being persecuted for child pornography someone else downloaded) for no good reason. Also, the authorities will find you anyway if you've ever used a SIM card with your real name in the same phone or even if you only bought the phone from a place where device IDs are registered (like Apple, presumably).
- chmod775 7y ago> I can't see a normal person willingly accepting this sort of risk A lot of Germans did in fact do it. So... there. Even my father considered doing it, being ever suspicious of the handheld tracking device that is the smartphone we forced on him. There's not much police will (or can) do once it's established that you traded SIM-cards. It's actually discussed in the first article I linked. There's also a good chance you weren't even remotely physically close to the phone/sim when the crime was committed.
- coldtea 7y agoOnly selling SIM cards with an ID, would. And going to jail for 5-10 years if you're caught bypassing the law, would as well.