South Africa a guinea pig for what's coming to the rest of the wor

[lekh l'kha]

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1026381

South Africa has had an identity-number system for decades. It's a long number, the first 6 digits of which is your date and place of birth, and the last three of which contains information about your race, marital status, etc.

Without an I.D number and bar-coded I.D book, South Africans can do nothing - you can't get a job, can't open a bank account (or any account), can't get a driver's license, can't register as a tax-payer, can't vote, can't do anything.

Trouble is, South Africa has already become notorious for identity-theft. Many have wanted to get married, only to discover they're already married (on electronic paper), or wanted to draw unemployment benefits, only to discover they had been doing so for the past 6 months, or wanted to apply for a state pension, only to discover they're already dead, and their life insurance policy paid out to their "beneficiaries".

You couldn't of course, get a cell-phone account with a cell phone company on a contract basis without your I.D number, residential and postal address, etc.

That means that as long as everyone who has a cell-phone contract has his phone on him wherever he goes, the authorities will be able to know all his movements and pinpoint his position at any given time. And nobody in South Africa leaves their cell phones lying around in the car or anywhere else, because all South Africans know that if you leave your cell phone lying around, it'll be gone by the time you get back to it, and your car window will be smashed.

95-98% of all South Africans over the age of 18 own and use a cell-phone - even the poorest of the poor, since it's their only means of communicating with distant relatives, and few poor people have land-line telephones.

But tomorrow July 1st, 2009, the South African Parliament will be passing a law that will give 18 months for every cell phone owner, whether he/she is on a pre-paid (pay-as-you-go) or a contract basis, to present their bar-coded I.D books to the cell phone company or their agents, and to register their names and addresses. Failure to do so within 18 months will result in the deactivation of your sim-card.

No new sim-card may be sold from July 1st, 2009, without a bar-coded I.D being presented and the necessary details being taken, including names and physical address.

The government says it's necessary in the fight against South Africa's extremely high crime rate, since it is possible to pinpoint the exact location of anyone carrying a cellphone using a triangular system (the cell-phone antenae in South Africa are placed in strategic positions so that wherever you are with your cell-phone, you are in a triangle between three cell-phone antenae.

And since many criminals use their cell-phones to plan their thing, deals etc with one another, the government has found this step necessary.

So within 18 months from July 1st, 2009, it will be legally possible for the South African government to monitor the the daily movements and pinpoint the exact location of 95-98% of South Africa's adult population, as long as they have their cell phones on them.

It's always been easy for the authorities to know where a S.A citizen stays, since even if you've moved without notifying homeland affairs, they can get it from the banks, the revenue services, the traffic authorities (since it's required to renew your driver's license every 5 years and your car kicense every year), or any store where you have an account. With your I.D number they can do anything.

Think about it - how difficult is it to steal someone else's identity - walk up the street and stick your hand in someone's mailbox - you then already have their name and address. All you have to do is to redouble your efforts to find out their I.D number. Then pay a bank teller a nice sum of money to give you the I.D number of their account holder, if you noticed a letter from the bank in the mailbox. Or pay someone at the traffic authorities a nice sum of money if you pulled a car-license renewal notice out of the mailbox. This is why fraud and identity theft are already such a major problem in South Africa.

So now the criminals will be doing their deals using sim-cards registered on your name.

South Africa legalized abortion years ago already, and last year a law was passed permitting any girl from 12 years old and over to be allowed to walk into any abortion clinic and have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of her parents or anyone else.

Gay marriages were legalized in South Africa long, long before Obama was even heard of in America.

I'm starting to feel as though South Africa is being used as the guinea pig for what's coming to the rest of the world.

[Hunterpoet]

Sure sounds like it. Could be they are working out all the kinks before they go global.

[Guest]

Praying For Her