India Is Planning to Curb Stealing of Mobile Devices

Users whose device is stolen or lost are not restricted from the device alone, but their privacy is also at great risk, that's loss of device result in economy and privacy loss.

Lost/stolen devices can be used to perform social engineering and other attacks. In spite of this, Indian Govt. is planning to curb the stealing of devices by blacklisting stolen devices IMEI. IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) is a unique number that comes with every mobile phone, it's mostly 15 digits and it's used to recognize device by network carrier, apps, and other services.

India Government is planning to build a Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) that will accommodate all IMEI of mobile devices operating in India (IMEI Database). So if a device is stolen or lost, the owner can raise a complaint to the Department of Telecom (DoT) with proof of ownership and immediately the IMEI will be blacklisted rendering the device useless (it will make the stolen smartphone impossible to use a SIM card of any carrier).

This is not the first time we are seeing the initiative, countries like the UK, Australia, Egypt, Turkey, and Azerbaijan already have a central register of IMEI numbers.

There are some bad guys who can bypass this by using hacking software to change the IMEI but hope this reduces phone theft in India 🇮🇳

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