NCC wants telcos to stop vehicle tracking services

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has stated that the vehicle tracking services being offered by digital mobile telecommunications operators are beyond their mandate, implying that they need to keep away from it.

According the Head of Legal and Regulatory Services of NCC, Mrs. Yetunde Akinloye, any company seeking a licence to offer vehicle tracking services must be scrutinised by the Department of State Security because of the security implication and sensitive nature of such services.

She stated this at the opening of a workshop for judges on legal issues in telecommunications in Abuja on Wednesday.

“Vehicle tracking is beyond the licences issued to telecommunications service providers,” Akinloye said.

Also speaking at the forum, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, said the market behaviours in telecommunications and the growing need for customer protection were increasingly becoming complex for the courts and regulators.

“These issues pose legal, regulatory and policy challenges. One of the greatest challenges in the sector is the great innovations in the ICT world, which have given rise to the growth of mobile broadband services, new broadband applications and services, in addition to the massive influx of smartphones and tablets.

“Emerging machine-to-machine communications, converged services, cloud services and many more services are giving rise to a new breed of service providers although these new services and providers are in their early stages. The evidence of greater challenges to come is overwhelming.”

Mohammed added that electronic transactions, including electronic commerce and payment, posed major challenges in the legal terrain relating to telecommunications.

According to him, these call for a corresponding reflection on the regulation of the industry.

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