UPDATE: Vodafone has issued a statement distancing itself from the Government’s plan, but stopping just short of saying it won’t participate.
According to a government report anyone who buys a mobile telephone in the UK will soon be forced to register their identity on a huge state surveillance database.
In a blatant attempt to clean up gangland lynchpins otherwise known as pay-as-you-go users, everyone will soon be required to show their passport or official ID when paying for a phone.
The government wants a compulsory national register for the owners of all 72million mobile phones in Britain, 40millon of which just happen to be prepaid and therefore clearly owned by terrorist organizations, pimps, hos and affair conducting business types.
OK so we’re being flippant and there obviously millions of us not actively trying to bring down the West with our weekly top-ups, but that wont stop our every move being monitored by the GCHQ in Cheltenham that’s already planning to keep tabs on our browsing habits and private e-mails.
Vodafone have already started contingency planning for such a move, and with 72% of its 18.5m UK customers on pay-as-you-go that’s a mountain of paperwork to get through.
What with the ad-tracking chips monitoring your shopping and the government knowing your every move, one thing is for certain…we’ll all be spending a whole lot less time ‘browsing’ in specialist bookshops from here on in.
(via The Times)
