Vodafone Reveals Direct Access by Governments to Customer Data
June 6th, 2014Via: New York Times:
A number of countries have direct access to the communication network run by the British telecom company Vodafone.
The revelation comes in a privacy report released on Friday by Vodafone, the world’s second-largest carrier behind China Mobile, that included information about how governments regularly requested data about the company’s users.
Vodafone said that it had received thousands of requests from 29 countries in the 12 months through March 31. But the report also said that governments in certain countries had direct access to its networks without having to use legal warrants.
In a “small number” of countries, Vodafone said in the report, the company “will not receive any form of demand for communications data access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link.”
Vodafone said that it would not name the individual countries that have direct access because doing so may put its employees and business at risk in those places.
Privacy advocates expressed concerns that countries had direct access to data without needing to justify their intentions through the courts, though they welcomed Vodafone’s efforts to provide some disclosure.
“What we are now discovering is that the picture is even more bleak than previously thought,” Gus Hosein, the executive director of Privacy International, said in a statement. “Governments around the world are unashamedly abusing privacy by demanding access to communications and data, and alarmingly, sometimes granting themselves direct access to the networks.”
