An investigation into the relationship between multinational telecoms companies, their subsidiaries and ICT contractors, and their international partnerships with national police forces.
Surveillance technologies are a lucrative global industry worth billions of pounds annually. Technology companies, often with government funding and support, develop and deploy products with a range of powerful capabilities to gather, process, and analyse sensitive personal data. Telecoms metadata – detailing how and where an individual uses their phone – can provide governments with ‘near-perfect surveillance’ capabilities, according to the US Supreme Court. When these technologies are applied without oversight or scrutiny within telecommunications providers, state security services can violate individuals’ human rights including the right to privacy, especially in counterterrorism or national security cases.
This project investigates how telecoms companies work with governments provide sensitive personal information on their service users. Beginning in Kenya, we have uncovered how police in close counterterrorism ally of the United Kingdom have used these technologies, including predictive analytics, to identify and ‘close down’ suspects based on communications datasets, and how a subsidiary of UK telecoms giant Vodafone may have frustrated investigations into state crime. The investigation has provoked outrage among Kenyan civil society and legislators, prompting calls for accountability.
We have identified similar arrangements in other countries involving multinational telecoms and ICT companies. As well as investigating these practices, and documenting their effects, we are supporting lawyers and human rights defenders to challenge these abuses.
