Tag: surveillance

Vodafone admits handing data to Mubarak’s Police

Posted on By 3arabawy

We have to expose the company for this:

Vodafone’s global head of content standards, Annie Mullins, told a Westminster eForum event on Wednesday that following food riots at Egyptian government-subsidized bakeries in March 2008, the Egyptian authorities demanded communications data from Vodafone to help identify rioters.
“We’ve had to hand over data on people in Egypt due to the food riots,” said Mullins. “Regulation can be a Trojan horse.”
Vodafone is not the first service provider to be forced to hand over customer data. In 2005, Yahoo gave Chinese authorities details which helped in the arrest and conviction of journalist Shi Tao.

Which riots happened in March 2008? The “food riots” Mullins is referring to are for sure the 6th and the 7th of April. There has to be a campaign against the company to expose these practices and find out more information about what happened. I’m honestly shocked how all parties involved in the surveillance, whether its Vodafone or the Egyptian Ministry of Telecommunication, are just too happy to go on the record stating publicly their crimes.

The surveillance is so systematic and rampant, that even Pope Shenouda had come out banning the Copts from confessing over the phone, coz “telephones may be tapped, and the confessions would be heard by State Security”!!

Rights watchdog slams govt censorship, internet users’ privacy violation

Posted on By 3arabawy

Excerpts from a statement issued today by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information:

The coffee shops visitors who wish to use the internet now must have a slip from the coffee shop with a pin number, he should enter it in an electronic form, as well as his name, and mobile phone number as well as his email all these information are required, in addition to other optional information such as the city and date of birth.
According to this information which should be correct, the user receives a text message on his mobile phone to verify the information, only then one can access the internet.
This measurement seems as a weird business deal between the two companies (Mobinil Mobile Service Co. and Link Telecommunication Company) owned by the Egyptian businessman Nagib Sawiris as first part and the security apparatus as the second part, both may benefit of such transaction, in which several rights of internet user are subject to violation such as secure internet browsing and protection of internet and privacy.