Norway’s Telenor might quickly commit an “egregious breach” of EU sanctions in Myanmar by promoting a surveillance system to a junta-linked firm that can permit the army to spy on hundreds of thousands of telephone and web customers in actual time, Myanmar Now has discovered.
The corporate’s extensively criticised—and allegedly unlawful—sale of its Myanmar operations will embody a so-called Lawful Interception system made by a German agency referred to as Utimaco, in response to leaked paperwork and present and former Telenor workers.
“The intercept system was put in at Telenor Myanmar a number of years in the past,” a Telenor workers member advised Myanmar Now on situation of anonymity. “However it’s not simply Telenor. All different operators in Myanmar needed to set up it as properly.”
The workers member added: “I’m not certain whether or not different operators have given the authorities entry to the intercept system however Telenor didn’t as a result of there isn’t any related legislation for us to take action.”
It’s feared that after the sale, the brand new military-linked proprietor will permit the junta free rein to make use of the system, drastically strengthening its surveillance powers because it continues a nationwide marketing campaign of terror to crush resistance to its rule.
Utimaco’s programs are designed to assist telecoms companies adjust to digital surveillance legal guidelines world wide. The corporate’s web site says the expertise “intercepts a spread of public communications companies in real-time, together with telephone and video calls, messages… faxes, e-mails… file transfers and different Web companies.”
Paperwork leaked to the activist group Justice For Myanmar, and seen by Myanmar Now, present that Telenor bought the system from China’s Huawei in February 2018 and put in it in Might of the identical 12 months, simply weeks after the EU prohibited the switch of surveillance expertise to Myanmar.
The April 2018 EU regulation, which was applied beneath Norway’s Sanctions Act, banned the availability of “telecommunication or web monitoring or interception companies of any sort” to Myanmar’s authorities, whether or not straight or not directly.
Though the system was bought earlier than the sanctions have been handed, Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung argues that Telenor violated the brand new ban by putting in the system.
“This egregious breach of EU sanctions have to be investigated by the Norwegian and German governments,” she mentioned.
The Utimaco system was built-in into the military-run Ministry of House Affairs’ monitoring centre in 2020, with a fibre optic cable linking the ministry to the system, Myanmar Now understands.
However Telenor sources say the ministry, which oversees each the police and its spy company, Particular Department, was not granted entry to prospects’ communications through the system; it was merely a authorized requirement to have the infrastructure put in in order that authorities may request entry if wanted.
Telenor has obtained approval from the junta’s telecoms regulator for the sale of its operations to the Lebanese firm M1 Group. It’s now awaiting permission from the Myanmar Funding Fee, in response to Myanmar Now’s sources.
After the sale, M1 Group will switch a majority stake within the enterprise to a neighborhood firm with shut army ties referred to as Shwe Byain Phyu.
Justice For Myanmar referred to as on the Norwegian and German governments to intervene and cease the sale.
“A critical sanctions violation is about to happen by means of Telenor’s switch of their Lawful Intercept gateway,” Yadanar Maung mentioned. “It have to be stopped earlier than it is too late and this harmful tools falls into the palms of the military-linked firm, Shwe Byain Phyu.”
In a authorized memo revealed on Wednesday, barristers Felicity Gerry QC and Daye Gang wrote that “Telenor’s authorized legal responsibility relating to intercept tools requires additional scrutiny.”
Since final 12 months’s army coup, Telenor Myanmar has complied with greater than 200 requests from the junta to share delicate consumer information, together with name histories and last-known places. Telenor complied with the requests regardless of considerations that they have been primarily based on info obtained by the junta by means of torture, an organization supply advised Myanmar Now final month.
Telenor spokesperson Cathrine Stang Lund neither confirmed nor denied that the corporate will switch a Utimaco surveillance system to M1 Group as a part of the sale. The corporate is exiting Myanmar exactly due to considerations about surveillance, she mentioned.
“A key cause why Telenor is promoting Telenor Myanmar is that we can’t activate intercept tools, which all operators are required to,” she mentioned. “This example is excessive and troublesome, with vital challenges. Telenor should guarantee its exit occurs in a fashion that doesn’t enhance the safety threat for our staff, and that continues to be our key precedence now.”
In a remark supplied to Justice For Myanmar, Utimaco mentioned it had not breached EU sanctions.
“With the introduction of EU export regulation which was revealed on 27 April 2018, Utimaco knowledgeable its worldwide enterprise companions that Utimaco ends all actions relating to accomplice initiatives in Myanmar,” the corporate advised the group.
It added: “In compliance with EU export legislation, Utimaco has additionally not delivered any services or products nor supplied any assist through oblique companions in Myanmar since then.”
Telenor’s sale additionally entails the switch of historic metadata, which critics have argued might be utilized by the junta to trace down dissidents.
Final month, a Myanmar citizen filed a grievance on the Norwegian Knowledge Safety Authority in search of to stop the switch of consumer information.