The people shall speak and the government shall deliver. How I wish that the comments put through by the public on this site be addressed at the press conference so that they should get a gist of the public's feelings with regard to their privacy. It looks like in most cases the government decides and act before consulting with the people/public to get their views then at later stage find that they have blundered then it becomes so difficult to fix the mishaps. I am not of the idea but at the same time see it working more especially to the crime busters who buy these sim cards, do crime and then destroy them, get other cards do crime and destroy them and so on and on it goes. On the other hand I think the cellphone providers would not be happy about this as this is going to affect their businesses. In future, I think what the government should do before putting anything into practice that they had decided upon is to first involve the public and agree to disagree. I know there might be people out there who can bring up good suggestions for them as no one is perfect in this world.

I think this law is ridiculous, did they ever think about our privacy? I dont think this will reduce crime at all. Anyway criminals always think proactively than those people who are busy drafting silly legislations. Andro

I think it is a joke, where do your rights to privacy and security come in. One of the main reasons for going the pre-paid route was to enjoy my privacy and security. What about fixed line numbers that are not listed for the very same reason. I don't think any thought went into the inplementation of this. Just another money making record

this is brillant all the major supermarket chains , un registered vendors and garages who almost give this away , now the legally registered dealers can come back into the market.

this is so ridiculous.... Are we really going to allow this people to take away our privacy rights? It's my cell phone, I pay for that alone and hell im going to have access to it alone. God

The are doing it because they dont know who tapped into their's and handed the tapes to Michael Hulley

"tapping of telephones and intercepting emails will come into force" .... "new act will force cellphone operators... to keep ... in an archive to allow for access by authorities." I WONT EVEN LET MY MOTHER READ MY SMSes! Talk about a new definition of BIG BROTHER! People find themselves married to people they have never met, how are you going to monitor a copy of your ID floating across the country? And if no one wants to leave their copies to street vendors, there goes job profiles... What about business abroad, e.g. Lesotho, Swaziland etc, they buy the SIM cards also... Database? Information? We South Africa still be able to trade as usual? I mean, was this thought properly or was it just imposed! Does the constitution have anything to say about it? And if we do not like it, can we do something about it? There are certain ideals I understand about monitoring of fraud, but HOW MUCH SECURITY IS ENOUGH SECURITY... Next we will be ask to walk around in our underpants just to make sure that we are not caring any weapons! P.S. Does this mean this message is now going into the archives, later to be used by the "authorities"!

If this will protect also the rate of crime in terms of people bieng robed of their cellphones and sometimes the same number bieng given to two people, it is fine. This not about the ANC, it is about the whole the people of South Africa. Balthy

Hello out there! Is there anyone seeing our rights to privacy being trampled.Well well well ............. Before the President signs this legislation or if it has already been signed therefore I think there should be an AMENDMENT in the BILL OF RIGHTS: PRIVACY. This is serious, lets have the amendment first and then let the new legislation come into force. Amendment please and then lets have all these rubbish later!

Viva ANC! This is what just under 2/3 of South African Citizens voted for, so don't complain now ~ this is just the beginning!!!