Tag: Telcos

Amidst reports of declining human rights at home, Vietnam will appear before the U.N. Human Rights Council on Wednesday for a review of its human rights record. Access, as part of a coalition of freedom of expression organizations, is urging the international community to address Vietnam’s deteriorating human rights situation, in particular the increase in cyber attacks against civil society.

This week Verizon became the first multinational telco to release a Transparency Report on law enforcement requests.

Just as new laws outlawing public assembly go into effect, Ukrainian security forces are accused of threatening protesters through targeted phone text messages.

Today, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee of the European Parliament voted on the Telecom Single Market proposal, which includes provisions putting net neutrality at stake in Europe.

The Culture and Education (CULT) and Legal Affairs (JURI) Committees of the European Parliament voted today on the European Telecom Single Market proposal, tabled in September 2013 by the Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. The proposed Regulation, which principally aims at completing a “European Single Market for electronic communications and achieving a Connected Continent” includes provisions putting network neutrality at stake.

Today, Vodafone announced it will ask governments in 25 countries for the right to disclose the number of demands it receives for wiretapping and customer data.

Yesterday, a U.S. Appeals Court invalidated the U.S. Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality rules. In its ruling, the court stated that the FCC lacked the authority to prevent internet service providers from discriminating among certain types of traffic — effectively allowing providers to make pay-to-play a reality online. This ruling is a significant blow to net neutrality, in the United States and elsewhere. The Court’s ruling creates a dangerous global precedent places the unique character of the internet — its boldness, creativity, and diversity — at risk. And yet, by ruling selectively on the merits of the case, the Court has left the door open for possible reforms, at least in the United States.

After years of public calls for telco transparency, today marks a historic moment: the release of the first-ever telco transparency report. We applaud CREDO Mobile for being the first telco in the world to issue such a report, detailing their responses to law enforcement requests for user data.

Access commends the opinion by the Advocate General, as it confirms the serious concerns repeatedly raised by civil society (see here, here and here, for example) and other institutions on the necessity and proportionality of mandatory blanket data retention in the EU. The mass retention of the activities of citizens, outside of the context of any criminal investigation, poses significant challenges to the very foundations of the rule of law and international human rights, including Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

Following close on Verizon’s heels, AT&T today announced it will begin to publish a semi-annual online transparency report in early 2014. This announcement is an abrupt about-face for the company, which only two weeks ago requested that the SEC allow it to ignore a shareholder proposal calling for exactly such transparency.