Prisons Not Allowed To Jam Mobiles
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday July 12, 2003
PRISONS remain banned from using mobile phone jamming devices despite calling for changes to the law after disgraced stockbroker Rene Rivkin was photographed by a fellow inmate.
The Australian Communications Authority (ACA) yesterday recommended the Federal Government maintain its ban on the use, possession and supply of mobile phone jammers.
Jammers can be used to block calls being made or photographs taken by a mobile phone and can affect services up to 4km away.
ACA chairman Tony Shaw said he was sympathetic to the concerns raised by corrective services departments.
And he said the use of mobile phones in prisons was a serious issue that needed to be addressed, but there were too many risks associated with lifting a ban on jammers, including disruption to 000 services.
``The grounds for the general ban on jammers introduced four years ago have not changed," Mr Shaw said.
The reasons for the ban include interference with licensed radio communications and disruption to telecommunications networks, as well as safety issues. Radiation levels of high-powered devices could also result in dangerous levels of exposure to electromagnetic radiation.
State and territory justice ministers had called for a change to the federal law allowing the ban to be lifted when photographs of Mr Rivkin on his first day of a nine-month jail term for insider trading appeared in a Sydney newspaper.
A 25-year-old man serving periodic detention at the Silverwater Correctional Centre has since been charged with smuggling the phone into the jail.
Mr Shaw said a key issue for the ACA was the potential for jammers to interfere with calls to 000 and other emergency organisations such as poisons information.
``Jammers cannot be contained to a discrete location and there is a danger of spill-over beyond the area which the device is set up to cover," he said.
``Because many prisons are close to populated areas, major roads and highways, there is a very real risk that legitimate users could be prevented from accessing help in an emergency with serious consequences."
Mobile phone users could not be guaranteed service access if jammers were used.
The ACA recommended that corrective services improve searches at points of entry to jails, and introduce disabling devices or electronic detectors to monitor all mobile phone calls into and out of prisons.
© 2003 Illawarra Mercury