The National Council of Provinces (SA’s second house of parliament) has questioned the sensibility of the amendments to the Regulation of Interception and Provision of Communication-related Information Act (RICA), this after it was passed through the National Assembly (first house of parliament).

The NCOP raised questions as to the practicality of the amendments. The issues raised by the NCOP include the fact that international visitors will have to register their simcards before roaming on the cell networks will be possible but the soccer fans will be exempt from registering during the 2010 event.

Other issues raised were that one would have to provide an ID (problematic seeing the current general state of affairs at the Department of Home Affairs) as well as an address before one would be allowed to buy a simcard (again problematic seeing that the real users who need cellphones don’t have regular fixed addresses). It was suggested that rural citizens select the local spaza shop or schools/churches as their addresses.

Since this piece of legislation was designed to limit criminal activity it is hard to foresee how this will change anything if simcards are able to be registered at any random address. Whilst efforts in minimisingpotential criminal use of cellphones should be applauded and supported, the new system seems to merely place a burden on John and Sipho (not to mention the financial burden on the cellphone operators, which will most probably be  absorbed by the consumer) whilst Mr Big Crook – the person at which the legislation is aimed – will still probably run around care-free with his “2010 simcard” or be traced to bizarre random addresses.

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