India is among 29 countries that wanted access to Vodafone’s network to intercept calls, text messages and e-mails last year, the UK-based group said.

In its maiden Law Enforcement Disclosure report, the company did not list the number of requests made by India as laws do not allow disclosure of information on interception and communications data.

A section of the 1885 Telegraph Act, and amendments made in 2007 require telecom companies to “maintain extreme secrecy” in matters of lawful surveillance. Vodafone also pointed to the 2009 IT Interception Rules, and Traffic Data Rules that require the maintenance of “strict confidentiality.”

The company did not say if it complied with the requests made by the Government.

Other countries on which Vodafone was not able to provide data in its Law Enforcement Disclosure Report included Albania, Egypt, Malta, the Netherlands, Qatar, Romania, South Africa, and the UK (in some of these cases the Government publishes figures, in others data on certain categories of requests could be published).

However, that such demands were made in these countries was apparent with the company stating that it had only published the names of countries where a “demand for assistance from a law enforcement agency or Government authority was made between 1 April 2013 and 31 March 2014”.

Worryingly, in some countries, Vodafone said, without naming them, the authorities require direct access to an operator’s network, sans warrants

The group said that despite the difficulties of categorising the information — because of variations from country to country — it hoped the report would help inform the ongoing debate on balancing government security concerns with the rights of citizens.

Right to privacy

“Our customers have a right to privacy which is enshrined in international human rights law and standards and enacted through national laws…Respecting that right is one of our highest priorities,” said Vodafone as it published the comprehensive 147-page report.

The company received two broad categories of requests from government or security agencies: those that it described as “lawful interception” giving these agencies access to the content of communications such as telephone calls or messages, and a second which involves metadata, such as telephone numbers, the duration of calls, or their location and destination.

In Spain, for example, it received over 24,000 requests relating to lawful interception, and over 48,000 relating to metadata. Thousands of requests were made in other countries including Albania, Hungary, Ireland, Italy and Tanzania.

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