To Reveal or Not to Reveal Private Info Is the Question Faced by Vodafone

In a report early this month, Techradar had brought to light concerns by global Telecommunications network, Vodafone, over protecting privacy of its clients against demands of State public and government agencies. Vodafone, in a document, apparently revealed which of the 29 countries covered by its network have been accessing data through it.

Mumbai: Six of the countries, the document said, could have direct access through Vodafone lines. It however did not disclose the names of the countries out of fear of breaking local laws and being eventually booted out.

In an introduction the company explained the reasons for publishing such a document. Also it mentioned growing privacy concerns.

The document revealed that “tensions between the protection of the citizen’s right to privacy and the duty of the State to ensure public safety and security” have increased due to the allegations made by former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden. Vodafone plans to update the report, that covers the period between April 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014, every year from now on. It can be accessed at www.vodafone.com/sustainability/lawenforcement. Google also complies to request for information from various governments worldwide. However, it remains to be seen if other global networks like EE, Orange, T-Mobile and Telefonica/O2, which have spread its lines across continents, will follow Vodafone’s example.

In an earlier related report, Techradar had revealed that Google was at present encrypting its data to ward off prying eyes. Google has increased its efforts in this direction especially after revelations by Snowden in June last year, it said. The tech giant’s reputation was threatened by the rumors that it had ‘willing complied’ with the requests by the PRISM initiative which according to the ‘now-infamous’ NSA spy took advantage of the communications between citizens on a large scale.

Google of course denied willingly complying in any such scheme besides tightening its own internal security to keep out intruders. The encryption will make it harder for government agencies to decode any information they access. Also it will not come in the way of Google’s obligation to comply with ‘reasonable’ requests from NSA or any other government agency.