Vodafone revealed on Friday that governments used secret cables to wiretap and listen to citizens' private conversations. These secret cables were directly connected to their network cables.
The company published its Law Enforcement Disclosure Report, the first of its kind, to admit and describe how the governments acquired access to their citizen's private conversations, as well as their broadband data. The report called for the end of this direct access and eavesdropping and promoted the idea of transparency between the governments and their citizens.
In the report, Vodafone outlined how secret cables were integrated to their network system, as well as to their competitor's to give the government agencies access into the citizen's phone and broadband records. According to The Telegraph, Vodafone claimed that this was mandatory for most of the countries where they have service.
"We are making a call to end direct access as a means of government agencies obtaining people's communication data. Without an official warrant, there is no external visibility. If we receive a demand we can push back against the agency. The fact that a government has to issue a piece of paper is an important constraint on how powers are used," Vodafone said in a statement as reported by The Telegraph.
Vodafone revealed in the report that there were 29 countries that required the company to restrict or deny access to certain individuals, and there were also government agencies that demanded that all customer information should be made available to them. If Vodafone refused to cooperate, these countries would not allow them to operate within their territories.
There were also some countries that demanded access to data such as the content of phone calls; number of calls made, the location of the caller, and the date and time of calls. Vodafone also named six countries that required all and unrestricted access to their cable wires to allow government agencies to extract data anytime they wanted.
Privacy officer for Vodafone, Stephen Deadman, told The Guardian, "We need to debate how we are balancing the needs of law enforcement with the fundamental rights and freedoms of the citizens. The ideal is we get a much more informed debate going, and we do all of that without putting our colleagues in danger."
