ISPs want rethink on Rica

Added by Editor on 13 June 2011.
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Ant Brooks

The Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa) wants the department of justice & constitutional development to relook at the Regulation of Interception of Communications Act (Rica) because of the “near-impossible burden of physically verifying the details and identity” of Internet users.

“Given that ISPs sell a virtual product and sign up most of their existing customers electronically (either telephonically or over the Internet), this places an enormous administrative and financial burden on them,” says Ispa GM Ant Brooks.

“Many ISPs do not have retail outlets, making it almost impossible for them to verify the identity of their customers.”

Brooks says the department of justice had previously recognised the need to re-examine section 39 of the act, which ISPs to record certain personal information of their customers and then verify the information before activating any electronic communication services, such as Internet services.

Most South Africans with mobile phones will have already gone through the above process with their mobile network provider under section 40 of Rica.

“ISPs face the enormous challenge of appointing agents or setting up branch offices to verify new customers,” says Brooks. “In order to be compliant with Rica as it currently stands, a customer needs to appear physically in front of an ISP’s representative with their ID, proof of address and certified copies of both of these (to be retained indefinitely by the ISP) before an account can be activated.”

In addition to the inconvenience this process would cause for ISPs and customers, it could have the unintended effect of driving up Internet access costs, Brooks says. “The costs associated with ISP customer registration could even drive smaller ISPs out of business as they will not be able to compete with bigger competitors with national retail outlets.”

Ispa has proposed that ISPs be allowed to verify documents in electronic format using the framework set out in the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act of 2002. “We are hopeful that the department of justice will give this proposal serious consideration,” says Brooks.  — Staff reporter, TechCentral

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  • http://www.sadev.co.za Robert MacLean

    FFS they wait this long before bringing this up?! They should be slapped.

    Anyway this is a storm in a teacup everyone in South Africa connects via mobile or a physical line. Mobile has been solved, all that should happen is this burden put on Telkom/Neotel to validate the line owner. ISP’s should be required to keep enough detailed logs that Telkom/Neotel can locate the actual line owner.

  • http://www.ellipsis.co.za dominic

    @ RM – ISPA has been beating this drum for close to a decade (there are other reasons for this reminder being released now such as the introduction of a RICA Amendment Bill into Parliament two weeks ago. Slap the drafters of the damn thing instead. The solution you propose is exactly what ISPA has been trying to convince Govt to do…

  • http://zen.co.za Henry

    @Robert MacLean – you should check your facts before dishing out bitch-slaps :) They (via the ISPA) have been at it for a long time – gov intransigence is a problem, to put it lightly.

    You wouldn’t consider this a “storm in a teacup” if your business was threatened by yet another well-meaning but poorly thought-out and impossible-to-implement regulation. Do yourself a favour and ask the ISPA what regulations ISPs have to comply with (over and above the usual impediments to doing business).

  • Unrealchris

    As for  Rica, the
    original idea was to stop criminals using cell phone for
    crime without the cell phone companies being able to trace who the cell phone
    belongs to. Or that’s my understanding of the whole Rica idea. After struggling
    to Rica and never mind the Fica thing as well, I see that people can give an
    affidavit if they don’t have prove of residence. Well, is that not just a HUGE
    gap that I see right there for the criminals?

    Why not just scrape
    the whole idea, it seems to be a huge waste of time in anycase.

    Just to give an
    example as well. I changed over to MTN, did all the paper work etc, but after 6
    months got an SMS that I was not Rica’ed. Went back to the same store, asked if
    the lady remembered me, she said sure, showed her the SMS and she just went into
    the system and changed my profile to Rica’ed. If she can do it for me, she can
    do it for anybody else as well.

    It’s a joke.

  • Keithff

    I thought this whole Rica crap was to help the police and intelligence service prevent attacks on the population. but its seems to be used by the cell phone operators to contact you even if the number is just for internet as in my case. change your number and go to a new service provider and they still call you. So who is befitting from this act. and what about privacy. This is a big joke being played against the people in this country, or are the police planning to round up all the criminals once they rica their phones

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