UK considering ban on car key fob style mobile phones

UK officials are considering banning the sale of mobile phones which are designed to look like car key fobs. The BBC reported today that they had been speaking with a government spokesman. The issue is being discussed with the National Trading Standards Board and the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

The NTSB have asked retailers to stop selling the products already. The Time reported that some of the Chinese constructed products were being advertised with prisoners in mind and having a phone in jail is an offence.

The mobile phones, marketed as ‘the worlds smallest mobile phones' have been available from many online retailers including Amazon. The design ethic is to make them look like car fobs with logos from companies such as BMW, Audi and Porsche. One of the listing on Amazon even said that the phone was ‘easily concealable'. UK newspapers said that one of the mobile phone adverts showed a cartoon of a prisoner behind bars.

The UK Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders have said that they believed the devices were made and sold without the consent of the auto manufacturers.

Prison staff are already making the efforts to detect the devices before convicts are locked in their cells. Phone signals may even be blocked completely in prisons.

More than 7,000 phones and SIM cards were confiscated in prisons in England and Wales last year.

Kitguru says: Do you own one of these phones? Do you think they should be banned?

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