Japan To Outlaw Prepaid Phones?

from the ban-the-crime,-not-the-offering dept

Mon, Oct 25th 2004 12:25am — Mike Masnick

In Europe, prepaid mobile plans have been a huge success, getting a variety of people signed up for service, and making sure they stay within their budget. They're less popular in the US, but are clearly catching on for a younger generation who need to learn fiscal responsibility in managing their phone plans. However, over in Japan, the government is anything but happy with the concept of prepaid plans, because they're much harder to trace back to who is using the phone. Apparently, some criminals have figured this out and have been using prepaid phones to commit various scams. Thus, the Japanese government is looking to outlaw prepaid service in Japan. Again, this seems like an over-reaction to the use of a certain technology in a crime. There seem like many other, much less restrictive, ways to go about dealing with such phones being used for crime. For example, they could require identification when phones are purchased. No matter what, this is unlikely to stop many criminals, who will simply resort to other methods to complete their crimes. The only people it really inconveniences, are those who really could make use of prepaid plans, such as those on a budget and travelers.

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Ken, 25 Oct 2004 @ 11:20am

Pre-paid cell phone ban
It seems Mike, you are also unaware that by passing as few as ten of these phones out to little kids with instructions to call when they see the convoy with the (pick your target) pass their intersection that a terrorist can locate and murder travelers in secret motorcades. Ditch the phone, keep the ten bucks. If you need to learn fiscal responsibility, don't do it at the expense of those of us who already are.
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Oct 2004 @ 11:33am
  
  Re: Pre-paid cell phone ban
  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You sound like John Stewart doing his Cheney impression.
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