Vodafone Hands Data To Egyptian Police

Jack Spine writes "A Vodafone exec has admitted the company handed communications data to the Egyptian police following riots over food shortages last year, to aid the identification of suspects. Egyptian law enforcement has a habit of torturing and murdering detainees, or of having them 'disappear.' This is similar to Yahoo handing details of Chinese dissidents over to the authorities in 2005. It's nice to have it confirmed that multinational service providers shelve morals in the pursuit of cash."

Comments

This is Government's Job, Not Corporations

[MightyYar]

I'm not sure it is productive to be looking towards these companies for moral behavior (Google, Yahoo, Vodafone). If we have a problem with the actions of the Egyptian government, then there are numerous ways for us to apply pressure.

Vodafone is based in England and operates just about everywhere in the world. If Egypt is acting poorly, then pressure your government to threaten sanctions on Vodafone (or any other company) for doing business there until the government wises up.

Frankly, if I were a Vodafone exec in a country with a reputation "of torturing and murdering detainies, or having them 'disappear'" I'd probably cough up information pretty readily, too. If you don't like that, then forbid Vodafone from operating there - don't complain that they are playing by the home field rules.

eh?

[goldcd]

"It's nice to have it confirmed that multinational service providers shelve morals in the pursuit of cash."
Exactly which world are you living in, their entire remit is to make as much cash for their shareholders as possible - and board get a kicking (or even prosecuted) if they don't.
Exactly how many companies do you think had their share price rise on the news they sacrified some profits to do the moral thing?

yeah?

[Lord Ender]

It's pretty unrealistic to expect companies to violate the laws of the countries they operate in. It is sure to damage their own business (which is their reason d'etre), and their employees could go to jail.

Re:Jesus Christ!

[MyLongNickName]

Thanks for you obviously well reasoned argument. No one thinks it is okay for Egypt to torture anyone. However, if you operate in a country, you better follow the laws there. If an ISP is required by a court order to turn someone in who is looking at naked 17-year olds, they better do so. Even if someone's opinion is that there is nothing wrong with this.

I don't want companies setting legal boundaries. If we don't like Egypt's was of running things, then we apply pressure on a governmental level, not through proxies because we are too big of wusses to address the issue ourselves.

For me, I figure we have enough problems to address here in the U.S. to keep us busy for a while.