‘We can’t alter call data records’
Telecoms employees testify in Collymore murder trial
TWO employees of telecommunications giants Digicel and Flow explained on Monday that call data and subscriber information cannot be altered or changed by them in any way on databases owned by the companies.
The employees were called upon to give evidence on Monday in the murder trial of Omar Collymore, Michael Adams, Shaquille Edwards, and Dwayne Pink at the Home Circuit Court.
Collymore and the other men are being tried for the January 2, 2018 double murder of Simone Campbell-Collymore, 32, and taxi operator Winston Walters, 36, on Stanley Terrace in Red Hills, St Andrew.
Campbell Collymore was the wife of Omar Collymore.
First to take the witness stand on Monday was a court processing officer from Digicel, who said he received an order from the court in relation to records for two telephone numbers connected to the case.
“I have read-only access. The time period for the search was December 2017 to January 9, 2018. After receiving the court order, I used the Business Object Platform application to extract numbers for queries from authorised agencies requesting data, such as the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA). I accessed the system by a unique username and password that only I have access to. Upon accessing the system I inserted the telephone numbers and the time parameters. There was no data for both numbers,” he said, in relation to one stage of the search process he went through using the Business Object Platform computer application on his laptop.
He said that after doing another type of search, he discovered call data records and subscriber information for the two numbers.
One of the cellphone numbers, he said, was registered to Dwayne Pink of a Constitutional Hill, St Andrew address. The other number was registered to another man from a Kingston 20 address.
“In relation to call data records, it also includes the location of persons connected to that number,” he said.
When court resumed after the lunch break on Monday, a court liaison officer from Flow took the witness stand. He said that in relation to the case, he received a notice, under Section 16 of the Interception of Data Communications Act, and that he received a court order sometime in 2021. The court order was in relation to telephone numbers. The required information was call data records and text messages.
“I can’t alter information on the database. The information is read-only,” he said, noting that the request for call data records and subscriber information was for December 2017 to January 9, 2018.
“I documented the information required in a spreadsheet accessible to myself only. My computer and the system were in good working order. When the information was extracted, I exported them as an Excel file. After the data was exported, they were sent electronically to the police. It was first encrypted,” said the witness.
The trial continues today.