Your cellphone number could be subscribed to a porn site
BY SIMPLY browsing certain websites on your cellphone, it may be possible for your phone number to be harvested without your knowledge and result in you being auto-subscribed and billed through your cellphone provider for a service that includes viewing porn.
This is according to a report detailing the sanctioning of a company used by banks and other big businesses to deliver bulk SMSes to customers.
This week Infobip Africa was suspended as a member of the Wireless Application Service Providers’ Association (Waspa) for apparently automatically subscribing cellphone users to services, including adult content. The breaches of Waspa’s code of conduct were “flagrant and extreme”. Waspa is a self-regulatory body representing providers of mobile-based services, also known as “wasps”.
The impact of the suspension is an effective shutting down of a division of the company’s business, and means that mobile network providers must suspend all of Infobip’s services with immediate effect.
Mobile network providers derive significant revenue from partnerships with wasps, where they take a cut of the money that wasps make off their subscribers.
The suspension of Infobip follows an investigation by Waspa’s media monitor, which routinely monitors members for compliance. In a report to Waspa management this week, the media monitor said it picked up two cases of auto-subscription, which included adult content.
There were no warnings to the consumer that the service was for adult content, “nor was there any reference to the fact that this was a subscription service, nor were pricing and billing shown to the user, nor were there terms and conditions visible,” the report states.
“There is little doubt that these are examples of a cynical and criminal attempt to make money at the expense of the consumer,” the report says.
“To add insult to injury, the subscription service includes adult content and no effort has been made to protect minors from this type of service.”
It appears from the evidence that cellphone numbers are able to be harvested without consumers’ knowledge or consent, simply by them browsing a particular website.
Describing the suspension of Infobip as “a slam dunk,” Dominic Cull, a lawyer who specialises in regulatory compliance, said the breaches were extremely serious.
He said Waspa had the power to order Infobip to refund consumers.
Mark Heyink, an information attorney and an information security consultant, said the harvesting of consumers’ cellphone numbers was an infringement of the constitutional right to privacy.
“If the government wasn’t so lax about getting an information regulator in place, consumers could complain to such a regulator.”