The operation and possession of mobile phone jammers are banned in Australia. This measure is implemented to avoid interference with mobile communications, which can impede the ability to make calls, particularly to emergency services.
Still, some authorized uses of mobile phone jammers do require exemptions.
We are in collaboration with Corrective Services NSW to examine the use of mobile phone jammers in the prison system.
Inmates are forbidden from having mobile phones while they are in prison.
Correctional personnel can deploy mobile phone jammers to interfere with the signals of mobile phones that prisoners attempt to bring into the prison unlawfully.
Employing mobile phone jammers in prisons could result in disruptions to the public mobile phone networks in the adjacent areas.
We coordinate with Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) to make certain that the use of jammers does not obstruct legitimate mobile phone activities.
According to the Radiocommunications (Exemptions - Corrective Services NSW) Decision 2021, Corrective Services NSW (CSNSW) is empowered to employ mobile phone jammers at the Lithgow and Goulburn Correctional Centres.
The exemption is derived from the trials of mobile phone jammers that CNSW executed at Lithgow Correctional Facility during the period of 2013 to 2018 and at Goulburn Correctional Facility from 2019 to 2021.
The trials executed by CSNSW successfully inhibited the illegal use of mobile phones by inmates at Lithgow and Goulburn Correctional Centres, ensuring that mobile phone users in the external environment experienced no interference.