| privacy 2003-03-13 |
| The Swiss parliament yesterday banned anonymous prepaid cards for mobile telephones after intelligence warnings that members of terror network al Qaeda were using them to make calls without being traced. After several months of reticence, the National Council, Switzerland's chamber of deputies, joined the Senate by voting 124-27 in favor of a law forcing telephone operators to identify customers and keep records for two years. The vote yesterday followed a warning by one of Switzerland's federal prosecutors last week that members of al Qaeda had used Swiss prepaid chips to avoid detection. Pakistan's intelligence agency has said recent arrests of al Qaeda members there followed telephone calls traced by a team monitoring satellite and mobile phone conversations of terrorist suspects. |
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