ILOILO City – Police Station 1 of the Iloilo City Police Office (ICPO) asked a telecommunications company for access to its electronic records. It wants to trace the bomb threat made to the Chief Justice Ramon Q. Avanceña Hall of Justice on Monday.
According to Superintendent Jonathan Pablito, chief of Police Station I, traced through phone records the police would be able to identify if the caller used a postpaid or prepaid number.
“If postpaid, we can really have the name. If it’s prepaid we can only request (the telephone company) and triangulate other numbers that had been contacted by the perpetrator and ask them for the identity of the caller,” he said.
The bomb threat was received by Rosan San Luis, administrative assistant of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) at the Hall of Justice at 8:37 a.m. on March 11.
The police, however, anticipates several hindrances regarding the request to the telecom company due to the Data Privacy Act. Pablito thus said the police will ask Hall of Justice Executive Judge Victor Gelvezon for the proper way to get a court order for the telephone company “to be cleared to give information on the (phone) number (of the perpetrator) and its origin.”
“We will propose legislations regarding these…that when you use electronic means, when you use telephones, cellular phones, landlines, internet to make threats, (records) will be open to the law enforcement,” Pablito said, adding that the Data Privacy Act sometimes pose a challenge to the police in evidence gathering.
Republic Act 10173 or the Data Privacy Act of 2012 protects the fundamental human right of privacy of communication while ensuring the free flow of information to promote innovation and growth. (PNA/PN)
