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IMEI AND THE LAW

Many countries have acknowledged the use of the IMEI in reducing the effect of mobile phone theft. For example, in the United Kingdom, under the Mobile Telephones (Re-programming) Act, changing the IMEI of a phone, or possessing equipment that can change it, is considered an offence under some circumstances and in Latvia, such an action is also considered a criminal offence.
Other countries use different approaches when dealing with phone theft. For example, mobile operators in Singapore are not required by the regulator to implement phone blocking or tracing systems, IMEI-based or other. The regulator has expressed its doubts on the real effectiveness of this kind of system in the context of the mobile market in Singapore. Instead, mobile operators are encouraged to take measures such as the immediate suspension of service and the replacement of SIM cards in case of loss or theft.

There is a misunderstanding amongst some regulators that the existence of a formally-allocated IMEI number range for a GSM terminal implies that the terminal is approved or complies with regulatory requirements. This is not the case. The linkage between regulatory approval and IMEI allocation was removed in April, 2000, with the introduction of the European R&TTE Directive. Since that date, IMEIs have been allocated by BABT (acting on behalf of the GSM Association) to legitimate GSM terminal manufacturers without the need to provide evidence of approval.

BLACKLIST OF STOLEN DEVICES

When mobile equipment is stolen or lost the owner will typically contact their local operator with a request that it should be blocked. If the local operator possesses an Equipment Identity Register (EIR), it then will put the device IMEI into it, and can optionally communicate this to the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) which blacklists the device in all other operator switches that use the CEIR. With this blacklisting in place the device becomes unusable on any operator that uses the CEIR, making theft of mobile equipment a useless business proposition, unless for parts.

The IMEI number is not supposed to be easy to change, making the CEIR blacklisting effective. However this is not always the case: a phone’s IMEI may be easy to change with special tools.

LIMITATIONS

“New IMEIs can be programmed into stolen handsets and 10% of IMEIs are not unique.” According to a BT Cellnet spokesman quoted by the BBC.

Facilities do not exist to unblock numbers listed in error on all networks. This is possible in the UK, however, where the user who initially blocked the IMEI must quote a password chosen at the time the block was applied.