Indian government is launching a new portal on May 17 that will help citizens to block, track and find their lost mobile phones. The portal has been created by Centre for Department of Telematics (CDoT) and it has been running the pilot in a few regions including Delhi and Mumbai. Named the Sanchar Saathi portal, the useful tool will be launched by Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The new portal is aimed to help people block or track their lost or stolen mobile phones throughout the country. As per the reports, the portal has already helped to block 4,70,000 lost or stolen mobile phones. It has also helped to track 2,40,000 mobile phones.
How the new portal from Indian government works
The government has made it mandatory to disclose IMEI — a 15-digit unique numeric identifier — of mobile devices before their sale in India. The mobile networks will have access to the list of approved IMEI numbers which will check the entry of any unauthorised mobile phones on their network.
Telecom operators and CEIR systems will have visibility into IMEI number of the device and mobile number linked to it, and the information is being used in some states to track your lost or stolen mobiles through CEIR.
The basic purpose of CEIR is to ease reporting of stolen and lost mobiles and block the use of mobiles all over the country. This will discourage the theft of mobile phones, enable the tracing of the stolen and lost mobiles to the police, detection of cloned or counterfeit mobiles, restrict the use of such cloned mobiles, as well as protect the interest of the consumers by making them aware of the information related to fake and cloned mobile phones. (with inputs from agencies)
