Vodafone Accused Of Handing Over Customer Data To British Intelligence

British telecom giant Vodafone PLC’s Indian operations Vodafone India, has been accused by the Central Government of sharing customer data with the United Kingdom’s (UK) security agency.

Telecom operator Vodafone is being held guilty of covertly sharing its subscriber data with Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), the national security agency of UK. The accusation comes straight from the Union Home Ministry as evidenced by an internal note written in the month of December by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to the Finance Ministry (FM), which says,

“Leading telecom firms, including Vodafone and Verizon, are learnt to be secretly collaborating with UK’s GCHQ and passing on details of their customer’s phone calls, emails and other communication and are known as ‘intercept partners’,”

What exactly has been Vodafone accused of? As outlined in the note, the company is suspected of sharing call–logs, SMSes, emails and communication achieved via other platforms with the UK’s security agency, which is equivalent to USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) or India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) or Pakistan’s Inter–Service Intelligence (ISI).

Vodafone India is one of the country’s top telecom service providers who routinely competes for the top spot with current market leader Bharti Airtel. It has around 162 Million customers within the country and the data it collects is certainly very huge.

Incidentally, the data collection is a routine process and there are usually no intentions of handing the same for scrutiny by a third–party or security agency, unless formally requested. In such cases too, the security agencies have to procure & produce a legal notice by proving the need. Moreover, the data has to be requested for each number separately. In this case the Home Ministry has openly accused the company of blatant sharing.

In view of the recent exposure of suspected data sharing by Internet Companies to US Government for its PRISM program, everyone is highly cautious. Data and Personal Privacy have taken center–stage. While Vodafone has openly denied any wrongdoing and the Home Ministry has yet to support the allegations by substantial and credible proofs, will such suspicions and accusations from one of the highest offices in the country, negatively impact the telecom company?

Source | iamwire

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