The Telangana police have been using a special portal called the Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) to prevent mobile phone theft and counterfeiting. They have already traced around 4,226 phones, and have returned more than 1,000 of them to their rightful owners. The CEIR portal was officially launched across India on May 17th, and Telangana police used it as a pilot project from April 20th to May 22nd. During that time, they blocked 16,011 mobile phones to prevent theft of personal data.
The State Director General of Police (DGP), Anjani Kumar, says that Additional DGP M Bhagwat has been designated as the nodal officer for the CIER portal. He also says that the day-to-day monitoring and tracing has resulted in handing over 1,016 mobile phones to their rightful owners over a short span of one month. The contributions have come from the Cyberabad Commissionarate with 149 mobile devices, Warangal Commissionarate with 91 mobile devices, and Kamareddy District with 79 mobile devices.
The DGP also announced that the CEIR application has been integrated with the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems citizen portal to make it more user-friendly for the citizens of Telangana. They are appealing to the citizens to utilize this service for lost or missing mobiles.