Cops are ‘spying’ on over 70,000 Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Cell C customers each year
The Right 2 Know (R2K) campaign has released a new privacy report, showing that government is accessing tens of thousands of people’s sensitive communication information every year, using a loophole in South Africa’s surveillance policies.
Statistics published by MTN, Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom show that law enforcement agencies are spying on the communications of at least 70,000 phone numbers each year.
However, in an analysis of the statistics, R2K believes the number could be much higher.
In May 2017, R2K asked MTN, Telkom, Vodacom and Cell C how many warrants they received in terms of section 205 of the Criminal Procedures Act for 2015, 2016 and 2017.
The statistics submitted by Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom showed that that law enforcement requested call records for at least 70,960 phone numbers every year.
Due to incomplete records (only Vodacom and Telkom could say how many phone numbers were contained in the warrants it received) the actual number is estimated to be much higher.
Extrapolating from this data, Daily Maverick journalist Heidi Swart said the estimated total could be as high as 194,820 phone numbers each year.
The loophole
R2K’s requests to operators were aimed at understanding how a legal loophole has allowed surveillance operations to take place using the Criminal Procedures Act, rather than the RICA law.
RICA is meant to be South Africa’s primary surveillance law, requiring law enforcement and intelligence agencies to get the permission of a special judge, appointed by the president, to intercept a person’s communications.
To apply for this warrant, the agencies need to provide strong, valid reasons as such interceptions significantly threaten people’s right to privacy.
“But policymakers have wrongly assumed that the information about the communication (such as the identity of who you have communicated with, when, and your location) is less sensitive than the content of the communication,” said R2K.
“This has led to a ‘loophole’ in our surveillance laws: section 205 of the Criminal Procedures Act allows law enforcement officials to bypass the RICA judge to get access to get your phone records – who you have communicated with, when, and where.”
According to this law, any magistrate can issue a warrant that forces telecoms companies to give over a customer’s call records and metadata. When a person’s communications information is handed over using the Criminal Procedures Act, they are not notified, even if the investigation is dropped or if they are found to be innocent.
“Policy makers are wrong to assume this information is less sensitive or private than the contents of the communication: metadata can reveal as much, if not more, about a person’s contacts, interests and habits than what they say over the phone or in a text message,” said R2K.
Read: Vodacom explains why it temporarily lost users’ data and airtime
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