Mobile phone users won't be asked to register

The Government has confirmed it has dropped plans to force anyone buying a mobile phone to register with the authorities.

Responding to an e-petition on the Number 10 website, a Government statement said there were "no plans to require owners of mobile phones to be registered with statutory authorities."

The petition was started by Privacy International's head Simon Davies, and gained just 266 signatures, but still garnered a response from the Government.

That response claimed that the Government had consulted on how communications data could be used to "protect and safeguard the public" from serious crime and terrorism.

While it considered a database of all communications information - a plan which has since been dropped - there were no plans to register mobile phones, it claimed.

"The consultation paper did seek views on options for maintaining our vital communications data capabilities to protect the public against a background of rapid technological change. It rejected an option for a single database holding all communications data," the statement said.

"It did not suggest that a registration system for mobile phones would be a useful or alternative tool to a single database, nor was such a registration system that would be connected to a single database of communications data contemplated in the consultation paper," it added.

Other countries require mobile operators to keep data on the identity of those buying phones, including on pay-as-you-go (PAYG) contracts, and the Government's statement doesn't preclude such a possibility from happening in the UK. In fact, the communications database it wanted to create will now be run by ISPs.