Are you being ‘pinged’?

First we had to endure the discomfort of phone ‘hacking’ revelations brought to light by the News of the World (NotW) demise. Now find that illegal ‘pinging’ is rife and it could well get some operators into strife.

‘Pinging’, by the way, is the locating of mobile phone’s position using cell tower triangulation. Yes, many CSPs offer this as an LBS (Location Based Service), but the level of location tracking ‘pinging’ refers to is usually reserved for police and national security authorities.

In fact, there are usually very few selected individuals that can make these requests to mobile network operators as the information passed on can be in breach of numerous privacy laws and statutes.

Why this ‘activity’ is making the headlines is that Sean Hoare, a former NotW journalist, alleged that for the princely sum of £300 the newspaper could get police to track mobile phones via restricted channels. Sadly, shortly after giving further information on the ‘pinging’ disclosures to journalists at the Guardian newspaper, he was found dead in his home. Although his cause of death is yet to be determined, even after an autopsy, police say his death is "unexplained but not thought to be suspicious.”

Now, before we all get carried away with conspiracy theories (even though the whole NotW story is the stuff blockbusters are made from), we need to assess what the disclosures mean for the telecoms industry at a time when it needs good press, not bad.

At this stage, and only from the information available in the newspapers, the issue seems to be with police making the requests through the proper channels but not for police matters. We still cannot be sure who exactly is in the ‘value chain’ and if it is unlimited to local police making bogus enquiries. Whilst the enquiry centers on alleged improper use of the facility by police, the mobile operators should be prepared in case fingers are pointed at them, as well.

What if, and this is only hypothetical of course, staff within a CSP were providing account information, private phone numbers and even ‘pinging’ information direct to unauthorized third parties? We have seen that unscrupulous journalists will stop at nothing to get this sort of information, but how about private investigators, disgruntled spouses, criminal elements and even debt collectors. Wouldn’t they have enough motive to offer a staff member a handsome reward for information extracted from billing, customer care and network management systems?

Let’s not overlook the potential of corporate snooping by competitors. Not possible? Think again. Your fraud teams will tell you that one of the biggest threats comes from internal or staff related fraud that is often the hardest to discover. What safeguards do you have in place to prevent illegal use of private data stored on your internal systems?

There is a tendency for our industry to look outwards for incoming risk, rather than inwards for any outgoing trade of information. Rest assured that it won’t be long, and likely during the current witch-hunt NOTW has created, that a finger will be pointed at a CSP and the police and press will have someone else to divert their unwanted attention to.