A secure democratic Net is a fundamental right

Vishing is a form of phishing in which one uses the phone to defraud people of personal information. The speaker on the phone says that he or she is from the bank and has to access or control financial or personal information for security or other reasons.

In Japan there is a variant in which elderly people are instructed by phone to go with their mobile to an ATM and to follow the instructions they receive on their mobile. Pretty scary is that people just do that and don't go to the bank themselves, asking why they are phoning them for instructions while they could have come to the bank themselves.

First the Japanese placed policemen at the ATM machines asking elderly people with mobiles what exactly they are doing and who is at the phone with them. Now the banks can receive permissions of the Administration to place mobile phone blockers above their ATM machines.

It has nothing to do with skimming as some blogposts say, skimming is placing new hardware before the card terminal that will read your card or keep it. There is also new protective hardware available for banks that want to protect themselves against that.

The ceiling-mounted electric wave control unit blocks cellular signals inside a sphere of 1-2 meters.

http://www.letsjapan.markmode.com/index.php/2008/12/11/cellphone-blocker-stops-swindles-at-atm/

In Belgium the same exception would be necessary as in Japan. Normally it is forbidden to install such devices. Never understood why.