Bits Blog: Vodafone Reveals Direct Access by Governments to Customer Data

Sang Tan/Associated PressA Vodafone store in central London.

LONDON – 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."

In its report, Vodafone said that governments should discourage agencies and authorities from seeking direct access to carrier networks without a lawful mandate.

Vodafone's lengthy privacy report follows similar analysis from AT&T and Verizon into how many data requests they have received from the United States government.

Other European carriers have also published similar information, though Vodafone, which has a presence in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, is the first telecom company to publish global data on governmental requests.

Vodafone did not give specific figures on how many requests it had received over the last year in total, though it provided limited detail on requests from 15 governments, including Italy and Spain.

Vodafone said that it had proved too difficult to compare requests for data from individual countries because each country reported the figures differently.

Instead, Vodafone provided links to various national government reports on how much information had been requested in the last 12 months.

In Britain, for example, there had been over 500,000 requests made by national agencies for communications data across all networks in 2013, according to the Interception of Communications Commissioner's Office, a government body.

Vodafone added that it hoped to provide a clearer picture in its future annual reports, though it called on national governments to be more open about how much data they were requesting.

"It is governments — not communications operators — who hold the primary duty to provide greater transparency on the number of agency and authority demands issued to operators," Vodafone's report said. "We believe that regulators, parliaments or governments will always have a far more accurate view of the activities of agencies and authorities than any one operator."

Governments' access to individuals' data has become hotly debated since the revelations by Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, about the spying activities by American and British intelligence agencies.

Vodafone said that it had to acquiesce to some governments' requests for data to comply with national laws. Otherwise, the company said, it would face losing its license to operate in certain countries.

source : http://rss.nytimes.com/c/34625/f/640316/s/3b3c07a8/sc/21/l/0Lbits0Bblogs0Bnytimes0N0C20A140C0A60C0A60Cvodafone0Ereveals0Edirect0Eaccess0Eby0Egovernments0Eto0Ecustomer0Edata0C0Dpartner0Frss0Gemc0Frss/story01.htm