Demand for old-fashioned mobile phones has surged in Kazakhstan following a recent ban on government employees bringing smartphones into the workplace.
As of April 1, civil servants have been forbidden from taking any phones able to capture photos, record audio or send and receive Bluetooth messages to work. The ban was primarily motivated over concerns about the growing amount of classified information allegedly being leaked out and posted on social media websites.
“This rule is being applied completely in the Interior Ministry,” said Saltanat Azirbek, a spokesperson for the ministry in Almaty. “Official documents should in no instance be publicly circulated since they could fall into the hands of criminals, and people of ill-intent could use them to their own ends.”
Some Kazakhstani government workers have long been setting the example. While roaming the halls of parliament, Interior Minister Kalmukhanbet Kasymov recently showed off his own phone, a vintage Nokia model that he said he has been using for the past 10 years.
Others are less impressed and have taken to social media to debate the merits of the new prohibition. The consensus is that the rules are unfair since most use their smartphones mainly to communicate with colleagues, relatives and friends, not to pass on secret state information.
The general public is even more caustic in its assessment. Shavkat Sabirov, head of Internet Association of Kazakhstan, noted that refraining from the use of modern telephones in an age of rapid technological development is decidedly regressive.
“In this situation, the government should just lay down rules of the game. Officials should operate under instructions about they can make records of and what they cannot. And on this basis, measures can be taken, but there should not be blanket restrictions,” Sabirov told Zakon.kz.
Mobile phone retailers are wasting no opportunities to exploit the sudden appearance of a new market.
Representatives for electronic goods chain Mechta said that the demand for simple mobile phones has risen threefold. The range of basic models on offers, of which there around 10, cost an average of 4,000 tenge ($12).
Some enterprising people have decided to make a quick profit by exploiting the sudden deficit in phones available for retail by selling second-hand models at above-market prices. Models like the Nokia 3310, which was released in 2000, can sell online for up to 15,000 tenge ($44), while a Nokia 6210 can earn as much as 40,000 tenge ($117).
Luckily for most, the ban affects only government employees. Everybody else, including journalists, can continue to use their prized smartphones, even inside government offices.
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