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Work item:
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Q.GIR
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Subject/title:
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Technical requirement and implementation strategy for Global International Mobile Equipment Identity Registry
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Status:
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Under study
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Approval process:
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AAP
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Type of work item:
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Recommendation
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Version:
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New
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Equivalent number:
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-
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Timing:
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2025-Q3 (Medium priority)
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Liaison:
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ITU-T SG2, SG17, ITU-D SG 2 (Q4/2)
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Supporting members:
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C-DOT, India, Ghana, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bhutan, Senegal, Burundi, Benin, South Africa, Central Africa Republic.
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Summary:
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With the growing usage of information and communications technology (ICT) equipment in people's daily lives in recent years, unwelcome side effects related to the increase in the sale, circulation and use of counterfeit ICT devices in the market has also been increased.
As described in the Recommendation ITU-T Q.5050 (Framework for solutions to combat counterfeit ICT devices), this has resulted in adverse consequences for multiple stakeholders such as users, network operators, genuine device manufacturers, traders and governments, including decreased security protection and quality of service for users and revenue losses to a range of stakeholders.
Section 10.1 of the above recommendation pointed out to “Prohibit the use of invalid and non-genuine device identifiers”.
As the issue of International Mobile Equipment Identity - IMEI re-programming still a major concern in combating counterfeiting ICT devices, section 9.3 of ITU-T Q.5050 mentioned about Reliable unique identifier - genuine ICT devices are required to have unique and persistent identifiers that are secure, in the sense that they cannot be changed by unauthorized entities, are unique to each equipment and have been assigned by the authorized assigner. Which implies that in order to reduce IMEI re-programming, it is required to identify that the IMEI is re-programmed.
When IMEI is re-programmed, newly implanted IMEI will be either random i.e. invalid, non-genuine IMEI, duplicate/already used IMEI or IMEI which is valid but not manufactured by the OEM. Invalid or non-genuine IMEI could be detected by MNO EIR by checking the IMEI format and matching with TAC information allocated by GSMA. Even already used IMEI can also be checked through CEIR. But to find out the IMEI which has not been manufactured by OEM/Manufacturers can be done only through the IMEI registry. The IMEI registry will contain the list of IMEIs which have been manufactured by the mobile manufacturers and issued for sale in the market/export. Some of the nations may already have implemented an IMEI registry for their country, but the issue remains the same when mobile devices are imported from other countries. This identifies the requirement of the Global IMEI registry. Participating nations will share IMEI produced in their country – which will be used by all other countries to find counterfeit mobile devices. ITU-T Q.5050 also mentioned about the Certification of the ICT device in section 10.2 to assist all stakeholders and guarantee the authenticity of the products, one possible solution should be to deploy a device lifecycle management system, based on these unique identifiers, that are able to track the ICT devices from the beginning of the manufacture process (including component origin, transportation and retail store where it will be sold) until it is delivered to the end-user - which could easily be implemented through Global IMEI Registry.
ITU-T Q.5051 recommends having the support of applicable national legal and regulatory framework before implementing any restrictive actions against stolen devices with tampered and duplicated unique identifiers.
ITU-T Q.5052 recommendation urges the requirement of Duplicate IMEI detection across countries in section 7.5. However, this is related to the IMEI which is already in use by the subscribers. It does not include the IMEI which has been manufactured but not used in the network.
Resolution 96 resolved that "ITU-T should consider solutions to be used to differentiate between authentic/genuine and counterfeit or tampered telecommunication/ICT devices, e.g. establishing a centralized national reference database of authorized equipment;
Resolution 97 resolved that "ITU-T should, in collaboration with the relevant standards organizations, develop solutions to address the problem of duplication of unique identifiers".
Global IMEI Registry will assist to resolve the problems such as IMEI cloning/duplication due to re-programming of IMEI.
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Comment:
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-
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Reference(s):
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Historic references:
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Contact(s):
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First registration in the WP:
2023-10-26 16:41:50
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Last update:
2024-04-24 14:22:06
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