IMSI Catchers

There is a growing concern, based on credible technical evidence that the government of Zimbabwe recently started using IMSI Catchers to track its citizens' movements and mobile phone usage within certain defined zones. Originally designed for military purposes by the U.S Government to track terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, an IMSI catcher is a cell phone false tower fitted with an eavesdropping device used for intercepting mobile phone traffic and tracking movement of mobile phone users. The confirmed deployment of these devices in Zimbabwe is widely seen as part of government's current plans to enhance state control over national cyberspace by actively using surveillance and data mining as means to confuse and entrap actual and perceived opponents such as protesters. Since 2013, the government has also been working on a number of laws, forensic and data mining tools which will help it to further repress digital rights, with a major repercussion on the country's political processes. While most IMSI catchers have been detected on cell phone towers of the government owned cell phone provider Net One, government may be installing these on privately cell phone towers. This assertion is backed by government's recent pressure on private mobile service providers to share their base stations under the infrastructure sharing regulations. There have been several incidents when cellphones have routinely responded to these catchers as shown on Fig.1 below. This is part of the emerging worrying evidence that the government of Zimbabwe has been deploying IMSI catchers on Mobile Cell phone towers boosters across the country.