Kuwait seeks to block unidentified mobile accounts

Kuwait's state security has asked mobile operators to block the accounts of people who have left or been deported from the country.

The move is to help tackle the high number of hoax bomb threats made trough mobile phones whose owners could not be traced, Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jareeda reported on Thursday, quoting sources it did not name.

Investigations revealed that the "threat numbers" originally belonged to people who had been deported from the country and that the new owners could not be tracked down for lack of data. Some of the numbers used for the bomb threats were new and were owned by people who did not record their data when they purchased the chips from retailers, the sources said.

The state security is working on a list of all the people who had been deported from Kuwait in order to have their mobile numbers cut off by operators.

A security committee will be formed by the state security to cooperate with the mobile operators on finding solutions to the unidentified numbers.

Several countries have insisted on the identification of buyers, saying that the proliferation of mobile chips and the availability of anonymous phone cards could be exploited by terrorists or bomb threat callers.

Several hoax bomb threat calls in Kuwait have caused the evacuation of public buildings, facilities and schools despite pledges by the police to take stringent action against those behind them.