[kictanet] Stolen phone blocking - A short story about CA vs MNOs

[Odhiambo Washington]

Once upon a time, when your mobile phone got stolen, you'd report to the
police who'd issue you with their famous "Police Abstract".
You would present that form, together with proof of purchase of your mobile
phone to your preferred MNO - Safaricom, Kencell, etc who
would then verify your identity and ownership of the said phone and proceed
to BLOCK it from being used.
During those days, the MNOs used to have a central shared database of all
BLOCKed phones and those phones would be rendered almost
useless unless unBLOCKed. It was possible to recover your stolen phone then
- should a buyer of a BLOCKED phone end up at one of the MNOs offices to ask
why "their phone" wasn't working.

*Las cosas cambiaron.*

These days, when technology has advanced, if your phone gets stolen, the
MNOs don't block it.
The last time I had such an unfortunate incident, Airtel told me that they
no longer block such phones because when stolen, the thieves go to some
crooks who
then write a new set of IMEIs to the phones, which then keep on being used
by the new owners.
However, if I needed that form to show that the MNO blocked my phone, I can
get it :-(

Now, it seems that crooks beat CA to their game, or who was it who had
control/supervision and enforcement of this process???

And me here in my naivety was thinking that with the advancement
of technology and regional integration in EA, the CA of KE, CA of UG, CA of
TZ, Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi
would come together and ensure compliance from the regional MNOs, such that
a phone stolen in EA Region becomes unusable due to the MNOs sharing the
BLOCKage database.

End of story. Not sure it was short as initially intended.

CA, are you listening?

-- 
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
Nairobi,KE
+254 7 3200 0004/+254 7 2274 3223
"Oh, the cruft.", grep ^[^#] :-)
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