When Mohammed Sohel, an IT employee in Hyderabad, couldn’t determine whether his phone was stolen or misplaced during his commute on a crowded city bus in April, he initially considered coming to terms with it and buying a new phone. However, after his friends insisted, he decided to report it to the police. To his surprise, the Madhapur police returned his phone without a scratch.
“I did not want to go to the police and start running from pillar to post. I thought it was a waste of time. But a few of my friends insisted that I go to the police. And on the second day of lodging a complaint, Madhapur police returned my phone,” he said.
Sohel’s experience is not unique. Between April 19 and May 23, Telangana police successfully traced and returned 1,110 mobile phones to their rightful owners.
This achievement was made possible thanks to the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) portal developed by the Department of Telecommunications. The portal acts as a centralized solution, enabling citizens to block the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) of their lost or stolen phones within 24 hours. Once blocked, if another SIM card is inserted, the police can trace the phone’s location.
While the CEIR portal was launched nationwide on May 17, it became operational across Telangana on April 19 after the DoT reached out to the state police for a pilot project. Mahesh Bhagwat, additional DG of CID and state nodal officer for CEIR, told The Indian Express that the nearly 25 per cent success rate that Telangana managed to achieve over a month is commendable. Of the total 17,399 mobile phones blocked during the month, traceability reports were generated for 3,419 devices and the police on the ground could return 1,110 devices to their rightful owners.
To ensure smooth implementation, a one-day training program was conducted on April 13 for 60 police officers identified as master trainers. Two personnel from each police station in the state were trained to use the new system. CEIR user IDs were generated for 780 police stations across 31 police units in the following days, leading up to the final launch on April 19. To formally request blocking a lost device on the CEIR portal or through the Know Your Mobile (KYM) app, details such as the IMEI number, purchase invoice, FIR number and copy, and a government-issued ID are required.
“In Telangana, we have taken it a step further by integrating CEIR into the police department’s citizen portal. Even if the complainant does not remember the IMEI number, providing the mobile number last used on the device is sufficient to block it. There is no longer a need to visit the police station or mee seva centre,” explained Bhagwat. He added that as long as someone attempts to use a reported stolen phone, it can be traced. However, if the device remains unused, it is not possible to trace it, which accounts for the large number of devices for which traceability reports are yet to be generated. Bhagwat said, “This is a day-to-day activity and we can trace more phones with every passing day.”
A dedicated team of Telangana CID’s cyber crime wing is monitoring day-to-day developments with all police stations. Lavanya Jadhav, SP (cyber crimes) said they could overcome the challenge of time and expertise by creating a common WhatsApp group where officials from DoT, CID and nodal officers clarified technical doubts to police officers across the state on a real-time basis. To ensure the actual tracing of phones post generating traceability reports, the police department uses multiple tools such as call data records and tower locations to pin down the phone location.
Station House Officer Kranti Kumar of Haliya police station in Nalgonda said head constable K Basavaiah misplaced his phone two months ago and it was recovered from a person living in nearby Wadapally just a day after blocking it. “He had lost his phone at the bus stand and the person who received it sold it to someone who then sold it to someone else. When we called him on his number, he immediately returned it,” the SHO said. In most cases of recovery, the phones are returned by people as soon as they receive a call from the police.
“Earlier, when a phone was reported to be lost, we would collect invoice and IMEI details and forward them to all telecom service providers and persuade them to know if the device was being used. With the database of all service providers integrated, tracing the device is easy. These phones once blocked are useless to them. Usually, a request is enough. Otherwise, too, there are ways to get the phone back,” a police officer from the IT wing added. The fact that IMEI numbers cannot be duplicated in phones manufactured after 2020 and that most phones reported lost as smartphones are making it easier for the police to trace these devices.