Multinational telecommunications firm, Vodaphone reveals that authorities spy on their networks asking for immediate access to them.
Vodaphone, the second largest mobile phone operator in the world publically revealed on Friday that intelligence agencies across six countries request direct access their networks within short notice, forcing them to oblige.
US intelligence agencies are main perpetrators of this action, recently shunted by European officials for spying on their networks. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been one such victim, whose mobile phone was allegedly spied on by former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden. Unlawful, not because of US intelligence laws, but under paragraph ninety-nine of Germany’s criminal code that incarcerates offenders for 10 years in prison.
This comes at an interesting time, when issues of privacy are rife for multinationals like Google who were forced to remove sensitive information about European residents from their search engine on request. While this may impede on the rights of other citizens in the world who may want to know if there is a child offender or criminal in their vicinity, European officials voted against this.
The privacy rights of individuals are at the forefront of a political and personal debate. Can the government invade our privacy, a basic human right, anytime they want to and does the ruling against Google’s favornot hamper the rights of other individuals access to information?
Adding to the complexity are calls for putting this information to a public vote which does not always hold the best interests of minorities at heart, the rule to ban same-sex marriages in California being an excellent example.
We would love to hear your opinion on this: Should government agencies be allowed to spy on us? And should we have a right to access negative information published about certain individuals? Comment box below.