Tag: Telcos

This week Access submitted comments to the FCC urging it to use its full authority to reclassify broadband internet access service as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act — the only viable way the agency can safeguard the values that enabled the internet to become a global force for commerce, culture, free expression, and innovation.

Access Senior Policy Counsel Peter Micek questioned the company on transparency reports, surveillance, and sweeping data retention legislation making its way rapidly through the UK Parliament.

Despite vocal and active campaigns by internet users in Mexico and around the world, the Mexican Congress approved a dangerous telecoms bill that increases surveillance and data retention while sanctioning mobile network shutdowns.

In the U.S., where Verizon has more than 100 million customers, the company continues to receive tens of thousands of government requests for user data every month, according to its latest transparency report.

On June 18, Telefónica published its 2013 Sustainability Report, to depict the company’s efforts to respect privacy, free expression, and other human rights, as well as social and environmental concerns, but fails to include many details.

On June 25, the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution to develop a treaty holding transnational companies legally responsible for human rights abuses.

Amongst the dangers faced by the USA FREEDOM Act—the surveillance reform legislation in the U.S. most likely to pass—as it moves from the House to the Senate, is the introduction of a mandatory data retention requirement.

Dangerously, the bill would allow police to access user data without a court order, even real-time and location information, and to shut down mobile and internet networks all without ever going in front of a judge.

The right to communicate is being curtailed across Central African Republic (CAR), under government mandated service restrictions meant to stop political protests.

Without warning, Kenyans learned last month that Safaricom, Kenya’s largest telecoms operator, had contracted with the government to provide a new communications and street-level surveillance system. The new system integrates 2,000 video surveillance cameras, video conferencing, digital radios, and a mapping system into a central command center. Worryingly, this contract likely entails many forms of street-level surveillance including license plate readers, facial recognition technology, and real-time tracking across major cities like Nairobi and Mombasa.