Vol. 457 No. 7
310 Miss Coughlan asked the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications the plans, if any, he has to ban the sale of scanners for Eircell mobile phones or introduce a licensing system for their use; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16204/95]
While it is an offence under telecommunications legislation to listen to, or divulge the contents of any mobile telephone message, without the agreement of the person on whose behalf the message is transmitted, scanners are, in the main, passive listening devices and have quite legitimate uses beyond any ability to overhear mobile telephone messages. It would not be practical to ban them or to license their use, and accordingly, I have no plans to do so.
As to the privacy of mobile phones generally, radio communications systems are simply not secure unless some form of encryption is employed as, for example, in the GSM system. Users of radio communications systems should be aware of this and bear it in mind when using them.
