The Senate committee has approved a mobile phone unlocking bill

The US Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to approve legislation that would allow mobile phone owners to unlock their devices for the purposes of switching carriers. The committee, with a unanimous voice vote Thursday, approved an amended version of the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act and sent the bill to the full Senate. Consumer groups and other advocates have called on Congress to pass a mobile phone unlocking bill after a Library of Congress action in January 2013 removed legal protections for mobile phone unlocking. The library had previously allowed phone unlocking as an exception to the security circumvention provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. “.