What government departments supervise this industry?

Some cases of applying mobile technology include:

Law enforcement
Law enforcement have used mobile phone evidence in a number of different ways. In the EU the "communications of every mobile telephone user are recorded".[1] In other countries, evidence about the physical location of an individual at a given time has been introduced by triangulating the individual's cellphone between several cellphone towers. This triangulation technique can be used to show that an individual's cellphone was at a certain location at a certain time. The concerns over terrorism and terrorist use of technology prompted an inquiry by the British House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee into the use of evidence from mobile phone devices, prompting leading mobile telephone forensic specialists to identify forensic techniques available in this area.[2] NIST have published guidelines and procedures for the preservation, acquisition, examination, analysis, and reporting of digital information present on mobile phones can be found under the NIST Publication SP800-101.[3]

In the UK in 2000 it was claimed that recordings of mobile phone conversations made on the day of the Omagh bombing were crucial to the police investigation. In particular, calls made on two mobile phones which were tracked from south of the Irish border to Omagh and back on the day of the bombing, were considered of vital importance.[4]

A further example of criminal investigations using mobile phones is the initial location and ultimate identification of the terrorists of the 2004 Madrid train bombings. In the attacks, mobile phones had been used to detonate the bombs. However, one of the bombs failed to detonate, and the SIM card in the corresponding mobile phone gave the first serious lead about the terrorists to investigators. By tracking the whereabouts of the SIM card and correlating other mobile phones that had been registered in those areas, police were able to locate the terrorists.[5]

Disaster response

The Finnish government decided in 2005 that the fastest way to warn citizens of disasters was the mobile phone network. In Japan, mobile phone companies provide immediate notification of earthquakes and other natural disasters to their customers free of charge [6]. In the event of an emergency, disaster response crews can locate trapped or injured people using the signals from their mobile phones. An interactive menu accessible through the phone's Internet browser notifies the company if the user is safe or in distress. In Finland rescue services suggest hikers carry mobile phones in case of emergency even when deep in the forests beyond cellular coverage, as the radio signal of a cellphone attempting to connect to a base station can be detected by overflying rescue aircraft with special detection gear. Also, users in the United States can sign up through their provider for free text messages when an AMBER Alert goes out for a missing person in their area.

However, most mobile phone networks operate close to capacity during normal times and spikes in call volumes caused by widespread emergencies often overload the system just when it is needed the most. Examples reported in the media where this have occurred include the 2001 September 11 attacks, the Hawaiian earthquake, the 2003 Northeast blackouts, the 2005 London Tube bombings, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2007 Minnesota bridge collapse.

===Sources===
1)ICT Security & Dependability Research beyond 2010: Final strategyPDF
2)Supplementary memorandum submitted by Gregory Smith, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/cmhaff/910/910we17.htm
3)Guidelines on Cell Phone ForensicsPDF, Recommendations of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, May 2007.
4)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/965274.stm Mobile phones key to Omagh probe
5)Communication safety, http://nokia-n98.org/communication-safety.html
6)New Japanese phones offer Earthquake early warning alerts, http://mobilementalism.com/2007/11/19/new-japanese-phones-offer-earthquake-early-warning-alerts/

Go back to Next_generation_mobile_devices_2015