fbpx

African Laws Stopping Vodafone From Outing State Spying

African Laws Stopping Vodafone From Outing State Spying

Written by Gareth van Zyl | From IT Web Africa

Unclear and even strict laws in African countries are holding back mobile phone company Vodafone from fully disclosing the nature of state-backed spying on the continent.

On Friday, UK-headquartered Vodafone unveiled its inaugural ‘Law Enforcement Disclosure’ report, which provides “a detailed insight into the legal frameworks, governance principles and operating procedures associated with responding to demands for assistance from law enforcement and intelligence agencies across 29 countries.”

Described as a ‘world-first’ for the global telecoms industry, Vodafone says its report “covers agency and authority demands for lawful interception and communications data for the period 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2014.”

“We have not included countries in which we operate where no such demands were received, nor have we included countries where there may be some form of Vodafone brand presence (for example, through a partner market relationship) but where Vodafone does not own or control a licensed communications operator,” says Vodafone in its report.

The report; in turn, focuses on demands accounting for the “overwhelming majority of all such activity”: lawful interception and access to communications data.

Lawful interception involves instances where governments have powers to order communications operators to allow them to snoop on certain network users. Conversely, access to communications data involves analysing small packets of data related to a device’s activities, which are logged on the operator’s systems. For example, access to communications data could involve an intelligence agency demanding details of all users visiting a particular website.

Vodafone operates in Africa via its subsidiary Vodacom: a mobile operator with over 50 million subscribers in countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, Tanzania and the Democratic republic of the Congo (DRC). Vodafone also has a controlling stake in Kenya’s biggest mobile operator Safaricom, while, the UK phone company also has an operation in Egypt.

Read more at IT Web Africa