Cape Town - Police have been given the green light to intercept the cellphone communications of citizens following the signing off of an exemption by Justice Minister Ronald Lamola.
The exemption allows the procurement and use of interception technologies to obtain information from devices. Lamola has now gazetted a five-year “certificate of exemption”, under the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (Rica).
He said the decision was made in consultation with the Cabinet members responsible for communications, defence, state security and policing.
Under the conditions of exemption the national commissioner of police must personally authorise the purchasing of phone signal grabbers, also known as international mobile subscriber identity-catchers, or IMSI-catchers.
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These are telephone eavesdropping devices used for intercepting mobile phone traffic and tracking the location data of mobile phone users.
The IMSI-catcher presents itself as a mobile base-station to intercept signals being transmitted between mobile cellular apparatus and a mobile base-station or a cell tower.
Previous applications by the SAPS for such an exemption over the past decade were rejected by Lamola’s predecessors at the department over privacy concerns. However Minister Lamola has said the exemption was in the cause of public interest and safety.
On the privacy issue, Corruption Watch executive director Karam Singh said privacy concerns should not be used as a shield to conceal corrupt activities.
Singh said the public wanted the police to be effective when fighting corruption, and that one reason the police had so far failed to successfully prosecute corruption cases had been because they lacked the technology.
“We shouldn’t hide behind privacy to facilitate the concealment of corruption, however, there needs to be oversight over how the police exercise these powers.”
Singh said the technology should be used appropriately to intercept communications between suspected criminal actors.
“The police should not act on the basis of spurious accusations, there has to be reasonable cause, just as there is when for instance they pull over a motorist and want to search the vehicle.”
CPUT political analyst Trust Matsilele said: “There are instances where national concerns supersede private concern,s and that's understandable if that is done for the public good.”
He said there were extreme cases where interception of communication had helped countries stall terrorist activists or clamp down on organised crime.
“However, the challenge comes when the police, especially in countries where state institutions are prone to manipulation, may end up using that exemption for partisan purposes. In instances where there is blatant abuse of such exemptions, the repercussions should be severe.”
Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Justice and Violence Prevention head Gareth Newham was, however, concerned about how the new powers would be used.
“For us the key issue is that until there is substantial improvements in the oversight of intelligence agencies and major reform, the threat that their capabilities will be misused, as was the case for most of the past couple of decades, will remain very real,” Newham said.