London's Old Bill, The Met Police, have bought in a highly sophisticated mobile surveillance system.  Through this, they can create a masquerade mobile network, coax your phone into connecting to it, then trace all communications and your IMEI number.  Uncomfortable stuff to say the least.

As UK government reach out to social networking, a possible Orwellian future remains on the cards.  Created by Datong, once it is properly installed (already used by US secret service and Ministry of Defence so it won't take that long), the technolocy can broadcast this fake mobile network over a 10 square km range and allow for the interception of calls, texts or MMS messages from any mobiles that connect to it.

But wait, before you start to think about the incredily scary concepts that emerge from this (hello 1984), the system could be used as an “intelligent denial of service.”  Simply put, if a mobile were intended to be used as a bomb trigger, it could be cut off instantly.

[Guardian]