How Telekom shares information
Telecommunications secrecy and the protection of personal data are fundamental civil rights, guaranteed by constitutions or legislation in many countries. This creates a legal obligation for telecommunications companies. Specifically, they must keep communications and personal data confidential, prevent unauthorized access to customer data, and protect traffic data and communications content.
Telecommunications companies are also legally required to provide technical support to security authorities in their investigations or in averting threats, such as threats to life or physical safety. This includes surveillance measures that enable authorities to monitor or record telecommunications connections. It also includes providing information about customers and their use of telecommunications services, such as subscriber or traffic data. To protect the public, the state thereby restricts the civil liberties of individuals.
Violations of the legal requirements described here are punishable in most countries.
Our disclosure principles for cooperating with law enforcement authorities
To meet this significant responsibility, we follow these principles. They apply to all Group employees entrusted with these responsibilities:
- For Telekom, safeguarding the secrecy of telecommunications and protecting personal data are top priorities. Ensuring that our customers have no doubt about the confidentiality of their communications is an essential part of our business policy.
- We support public authorities within the legal framework where there is a legal obligation for an interference with fundamental rights and the legal requirements have been met.
- We create the greatest possible public transparency about surveillance and information requests that have taken place.
- We advocate for an appropriate balance between national security interests and our customers' fundamental freedoms. We also support legal certainty in applying the relevant laws, for both government authorities and telecommunications companies that are subject to these obligations.
In practice, this means
Whenever our customers' fundamental rights are affected, Telekom does not cooperate unless there is a strict legal obligation to do so. If a legal provision or a request from an authority is unclear, we do not cooperate. Instead, we clarify the facts and legal issues, seeking a court's assistance when necessary.
We deliberately keep the group of employees assigned to these tasks small, in line with the so-called “need-to-know principle.” These employees receive regular training to provide the greatest possible legal certainty for our employees and our company. Even where not required by law, their contracts require them to maintain strict confidentiality. To prevent misuse and human error, we process surveillance requests in accordance with the so-called “dual control principle”. We document each instance of access separately.
We also take special technical precautions in accordance with internal requirements. For example, the IT systems needed to process requests, including when transmitting content to government authorities, must be secured using state-of-the-art security technology and reviewed separately. Physical access to critical infrastructure is tightly restricted and reserved exclusively for Telekom employees. Logical access to the relevant IT systems is kept to a minimum and permitted only for employees in line with the “need-to-know principle.”
