No uniform guidelines, DoT tells Meerut cops on ‘unique’ IMEI active on 13,000 phones

In a reply to a letter by Meerut police seeking to block the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) active on over 13,000 phones across the country, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) stated that there is no uniform guidelines to deal with such cases.

After a five-month long investigation, the local police recently filed a final report in the IMEI “cloning” case and had reportedly given a “clean chit” to a Chinese mobile firm. Investigators concluded that the findings do not amount to any criminal offence and hence the charges of cheating and violation of IT Act doesn’t arise. They had even called it a “technical glitch”.

“As the matter relates to use of such mobile sets – with the same IMEI number – spread over the entire country, a uniform policy/guideline to handle/curb this/such case(s) is awaited from DoT headquarters. In absence of any uniform policy/guideline from DoT this office is unable to take any further action in the matter,” office of the senior deputy director general (DDG) UP (west) under DoT in Meerut stated in a letter dated October 20 addressed to the senior superintendent of police.

Notably, an FIR in the case was registered earlier in June after a preliminary probe by the cyber cell unit on the complaint of a UP sub-inspector alleging a duplicate IMEI number on his cell phone showed his IMEI was active on at least 13,000 phones across the country in a time span of 30 minutes.

Every mobile phone carries a unique identification — a 15-digit number called IMEI. And no two phones can have the same IMEI. The IMEI allows mobile service providers to identify devices on a network — it is what is tracked when a phone is lost or stolen. Cloning IMEI means a phone can become virtually untraceable, lost in the volumes of same IDs.

The investigating officer in the case had initially complained that the company officials were not cooperating and a notice was sent to the chief executive officer to join the probe in July.

However, senior officials confirmed on Sunday that the final report was filed last month, and they found the case did not amount to any “criminal misconduct”.