Mobile phone company wants to be open about government requests it receives in the 25 countries where it operates

This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Vodafone is to take a stand on privacy by asking British ministers, and the governments of each of the 25 countries in which it operates, for the right to disclose the number of demands it receives for wiretapping and customer data.

In a push back against the use of telecoms networks for mass surveillance, as revealed by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Vodafone is to write to the home secretary, Theresa May, and the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, demanding greater transparency.

"We want all of our customers worldwide to feel they are at liberty to communicate with each other as they see fit. We want our networks to be big and busy withpeople who are confident they can communicate with each other freely; anything that inhibits that is very bad for any commercial operator," said Vodafone's privacy head, Stephen Deadman.

Vodafone says British law currently prevents it from sharing even general information on wiretapping.

Under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa), discussing the existence of a warrant is punishable by five years in prison.

The company wants to follow its American counterparts AT&T and Verizon, and digital groups including Google, Microsoft and Facebook, in publishing regular transparency reports.

US companies have committed to twice-yearly updates on how many surveillance requests they receive from each government around the world, whether those requests are for the content of calls or emails, or for the so-called metadata such as names, addresses, locations, dates and phone numbers.

Vodafone would like to disclose surveillance requests in its annual sustainability report, due to be published in June.

Deadman said: "Where governments do not and will not disclose, and it is lawful for us to do so, we will disclose our own total aggregate numbers of law-enforcement demands.

"Where it is not lawful for us to disclose we will say so and we will say what provisions of law apply."

The world's second-largest mobile phone company, Vodafone operates in more than 25 markets including India, Turkey and South Africa, but the UK is among the markets where disclosure is most restricted.

Alongside the requests, Vodafone will publish a set of government surveillance principles, which will be displayed on its website and translated into several languages.

The key points, shown to the Guardian, state that Vodafone:

• Will not allow access to customer data unless legally obliged to do so

• Will not go beyond what is required under the law

• Will not accept any instruction from an agency foreign to the country in which it is being asked to allow surveillance

• Will challenge requests in law where appropriate

• Will honour international human rights standards as much as possible where these conflict with domestic standards.

The British government publishes some surveillance statistics, via the office of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, whose job it is to check warrants are issued lawfully and that the wrong individuals are not targeted by mistake.

In 2012, security concerns around the Olympics led to a marked rise in the number of surveillance notices.

There were 570,000 authorisations for metadata, a 16% increase on the previous year, and 3,370 warrants for content interception, a 15% increase on 2011.

But the commissioner cannot share how many individuals were targeted by those requests, and it is unclear how mass interceptions such as those made under Tempora – a clandestine electronic surveillance programme operated by GCHQ – are counted.

Section 19 of the Ripa regulations, under which agencies ranging from the police to local councils can make requests, sets out the offence of unauthorised disclosure, saying where a warrant has been issued, telecoms companies must "keep secret … the existence and contents of the warrant".

Section 94 of the Telecommunications Act 1984 says companies cannot disclose if ministers believe disclosure would be "against the interests of national security or relations with the government of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, or the commercial interests of some other person".

Deadman said Vodafone would not be transparent about surveillance in each of the markets in which it operates, because disclosure could compromise the safety of its staff or cause the company to lose its licence to operate.

AT&T and Verizon agreed at the end of last year to publish transparency reports after pressure from shareholders.

These were pioneered by Google in 2010 and campaign groups Access and Big Brother Watch have called on British companies to do the same.