Tom Warren reports:
Vodafone is revealing the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to directly access conversations on its networks. The surprise revelations are contained within a 40,000 word document published today, designed to shed light on surveillance in the 29 countries that Vodafone operates in worldwide. Countries like Albania, Egypt, Hungary, India, Malta, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, and Turkey all prohibit carriers to disclose any details of wiretapping, so Vodafone isn’t revealing the exact details of the governments involved in monitoring communications in such a direct way.
Read more on The Verge.
In related news, Deutsche Telekom is also going to reveal surveillance. Juliette Garside of the Guadian reports:
Germany’s biggest telecoms company is to follow Vodafone in disclosing for the first time the number of surveillance requests it receives from governments around the world.
Deutsche Telekom, which owns half of Britain’s EE mobile network and operates in 14 countries including the US, Spain and Poland, has already published surveillance data for its home nation – one of the countries that have reacted most angrily to the Edward Snowden revelations. In the wake of Vodafone’s disclosures, first published in the Guardian on Friday, it announced that it would extend its disclosures to every other market where it operates and where it is legal.
A spokeswoman for Deutsche Telekom, which has 140 million customers worldwide, said: “Deutsche Telekom has initially focused on Germany when it comes to disclosure of government requests. We are currently checking if and to what extent our national companies can disclose information. We intend to publish something similar to Vodafone.”
Read more on The Guardian.