Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR)

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25-Mar-2022: Phone Tracing Under CEIR Project

The Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) project has been launched in Delhi, Mumbai and Maharashtra licensed service areas (LSAs) in a phased manner to facilitate blocking and tracing of lost and stolen mobile phones. As per the reports from CEIR system, the request for blocking of 169667, 8315 and 11848 International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) have been received till 20.03.2022 for Delhi, Mumbai and Maharashtra LSAs respectively. The traceability data for 110239, 4586 and 8317 IMEIs have been made available to police of Delhi, Mumbai and Maharashtra respectively to facilitate recovery of handsets.

CEIR is a multi-stakeholder system where respective stakeholders including Department of Telecommunications, Telecom Service Providers, Police, Mobile phone manufacturers and mobile phone subscribers have a limited access as per their defined roles and responsibilities. Currently, this includes the information to the subscriber about the make & model corresponding to IMEI of his/her mobile handset, information to mobile phone manufacturers about genuineness of IMEI during import of consignment of mobile phones etc.

30-Dec-2019: Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) launched

The Union Minister for Communications, Law & Justice and Electronics & Information Technology, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad has said that the Mobile Security should be our National Priority because the mobile handset became an important tool for all online activities. He launched a Web Portal called ‘Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR)’ for the customers of Delhi to facilitate blocking and tracing of Stolen/Lost Mobile Phones in Delhi.

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The Tele-density in the country has increased to 242 mobiles for 100 populations and the mobile handset became a means to fulfil all day-to-day requirements. Therefore, securing mobile with a system is the need of the hour.

International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) is supposed to be a unique identity of a mobile phone device. A phone with one/two slots of SIM Card is programmed with one/two IMEI number as the case may be. IMEI number being programmable, some miscreants do reprogram the IMEI number, which results in cloning of IMEI causing multiple devices with same IMEI number. As on date, there are many cases of clones/duplicated IMEI handsets in the network.

If such IMEI is blocked, a large number of mobile phones will get blocked being handsets with same IMEI causing inconvenience to many genuine customers. Thus, there is a need to eliminate duplicate/fake IMEI mobile phones from the network.

Accordingly, this project called Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) system has been undertaken by the DoT for addressing security, theft and other concerns including reprogramming of mobile handsets.

The launch of Project in Delhi will facilitate as follows:

  • Request for blocking of stolen or lost mobile phone by customers.
  • Blocking of such mobile phones across mobile networks.
  • Allowing services to other existing customers have mobile phones with same IMEI number.
  • Sharing of traceability date with Police Authorities.
  • Unblocking of recovered/found stolen or lost mobile phones.

14-Jul-2019: India is setting up a mobile phone handsets database.

The National Telecom Policy of 2012 calls for the establishment of a National Mobile Property Registry to address the issue of “security, theft, and other concerns including reprogramming of mobile handsets”. Based on this, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the Ministry of Communications initiated a Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) for mobile service providers.

The DoT issued a memorandum in July 2017 announcing the CEIR with a pilot project led by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited in Maharashtra. In January 2018, this project was handed over to the Centre for Development of Telematics (CDoT). Now, it is all set to roll out.

Based on a 2008 order from the DoT, every mobile network provider in India has an Equipment Identity Register (EIR), or a database of the phones connected to its network. These EIRs will now share information with a single central database, the CEIR. In essence, it will be a repository of information on all mobile phones connected to networks across India. There were over 1,026 million active wireless phone connections by the end of 2018, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

As per the DoT’s 2017 memorandum, the CEIR will have information on the device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number (every phone or mobile broadband device has this unique 15 digit code that precisely identifies the device), model, version, and “other information”. It will also know if the phone is blacklisted, and the reason why it has been blacklisted.

Phones are identified based on the IMEI number, which you can find under the battery in many mobiles or by dialling ‘*#06#’ on the device. Mobile phone manufacturers assign IMEI numbers to each device based on ranges allotted to them by the Global System for Mobile Communications Association. Dual SIM phones will have two IMEI numbers.

Such centralised databases are meant to identify and block stolen or illegal mobile phones across networks. Currently, when a customer reports a mobile phone as missing or stolen, mobile service providers have the ability to blacklist the phone’s IMEI in their EIRs and block it from accessing their network. But if the SIM is changed to a new network, it can continue to be in use. With a CEIR, all network operators will be aware that the phone is blacklisted.

The CEIR will also access the GSMA’s database of IMEI numbers to check whether the phone is authentic. There are cases of phones being in use with duplicate IMEI numbers, or with all zeroes instead of an authentic IMEI number.

Most importantly, as per the DoT’s 2017 memorandum, the CEIR will be able to block services to subscribers. This ability had rested with individual networks till now. The memorandum also mentions enabling “IMEI-based lawful interception”, which means allowing legal authorities to use CEIR data.

In its 2010 consultation paper on “issues relating to blocking of IMEI for lost/stolen mobile handsets,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) raises a key issue with the CEIR — who should maintain such a high-value database? Should it be the service provider, or a neutral third party?

In their responses to the consultation paper, many major service providers preferred having a third party, ranging from international bodies to TRAI itself as suggested by the BSNL. The CDoT, which is reportedly readying to roll out the service, is an autonomous entity under the DoT.

Another major issue is cloning, or reprogramming stolen or unauthorised mobile phones to attach existing genuine IMEI numbers. Blocking cloned IMEI numbers could result in the authentic ones also being blocked. So, the IMEI Cloning and Duplication Restriction (ICDR) software is to be integrated in the CEIR.