Cell Phones Aren’t Criminal’s Best Friend

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No bad deed goes unpunished, or at least that’s how things should work in theory. Cell phones are more and more popular this days, and the smarter they get, the more people want to use them. And it looks like both the U.S. Senate and the NYPD are aware of the importance of cell phones in our lives. Don’t be afraid, nothing is going to happen to you or your cell phone if you’re not a criminal.

Let’s take the Senate for example! They have just passed the Safe Prison Communications Act of 2009 which basically says that it’s ok to jam cell phone signal inside any prison. The reason behind it is pretty simple. More and more convicted felons are finding ingenious ways to smuggle cell phones inside prisons. That way they can keep conducting their business despite being locked up for a number of years. Once the bill goes through the House of Representatives we can expect prisons to start jamming the phone signal. I guess that most inmates will quit trying to bring phones inside once the jamming devices have been deployed by the state. The other ones will probably get satellite phones instead.

On a different, but very related note, it looks like NYPD officers are currently being instructed to record IMEIs from the phones removed from jailed suspects. NYPD hopes to build up a database which will let them match phones with certain crimes. That’s certainly bothering to a certain level since such conduct is against the rights of the suspect. Unfortunately for the NYPD, keeping such a database could be pretty difficult once criminals hear about it. They will simply have to change phones frequently and thus make the job of the New York’s Finest a lot more difficult.

Wondering what an IMEI is? It’s a number that’s unique for each phone out there which means every time you change your phone the IMEI also changes. Maybe the NYPD should track the IMSI number. That’s a number associated with the SIM card which lets carriers track subscribers no matter what phone they are using at the moment. But the NYPD isn’t doing anything like that, are they?