LONDON -- Some governments have the ability to tap directly into the communication network run by the British telecom company Vodafone, the company disclosed in a privacy report.
Vodafone is the world's second-largest carrier behind China Mobile. The report it released Friday included information about how governments regularly requested data about the company's users for law enforcement and national security purposes.
Vodafone said it had received thousands of requests from 29 countries in the 12 months through March 31. But the report also said 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 it would not name the countries that have direct access, which includes the ability to listen in on phone calls and read text messages, 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."
Peter Micek, policy counsel at the digital-rights group Access in New York, said the "report confirms rumors of authorities vacuuming up user data, legally or otherwise, straight from the company's lines, through a virtual backdoor to our private lives, something we've always feared. This report is a big step forward for Vodafone and the telecom sector as a whole."
Vodafone said governments should discourage agencies and authorities from seeking direct access to carrier networks without a lawful mandate.
Governments' access to individuals' data has become hotly debated since the revelations by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, about the spying activities by U.S. and British intelligence agencies.
In Luxembourg on Friday, Viviane Reding, the European justice commissioner who is in charge of data protection issues, said that "one year after the Snowden revelations, this shows again the scale of collection by governments of data being held by private companies."
Reding declined to comment specifically on the Vodafone report. She said, however, that there should not be unregulated or direct access to individuals' data held by companies, but "only when there is a clear suspicion. Not with a Hoover, but with tweezers."
Despite the European commissioner's strong words, the European Union has little power to intercede in national security matters, as member states have the final say over how security agencies access information on people within their borders.
Vodafone's lengthy privacy report followed similar analysis from AT&T and Verizon into how many data requests they have received from the U.S. government.
Other European carriers also have 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 past year in total, though it provided limited detail on requests from 14 governments, including Italy and Spain.
Vodafone said 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 past 12 months.
In Britain, for example, there had been more than 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."
Vodafone said 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.
A Section on 06/07/2014