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."

This is Government's Job, Not Corporations

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.

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So, you are saying that Vodafone's ethics are okay, "under the circumstances"? That seems to be what I get from your comments.

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No, their ethics are not okay.

While it's fine to criticize the company, any effort directed at them is - IMHO - better directed at your national government. If a company does business in Egypt, this sort of thing is going to inevitably happen.

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That's exactly the point. It isn't up to corporations to formulate our policy. If we don't like the local laws of Egypt, then we need to take action on the government level. Expecting a corporation to fulfill this function will drive you to madness!

They are supposed to follow the law and do their economic thing. I'd prefer that the people involved behaved ethically, but frankly that shouldn't be important. Things should be set up in such a way that if someone is unethical, they get caught. Also, we as a soc

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So, you are saying that Vodafone's ethics are okay, "under the circumstances"? That seems to be what I get from your comments.

First thing, corporations don't have ethics, at best the people within those corporations have ethics.

The Vodafone exec would have a shitton of shareholders breathing down his neck and calling for his head if he pulled out of Egypt or sacrificed a large amount of shareholder money in order to withhold data from the government. What's really necessary if your assessing duty to the corporation is to look to the shareholders for responsibility. Some won't care, others might, but what if you stand to lose a s

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Yes, corporations DO have ethics, in a very practical sense. Those ethics mirror those of the board. They are (or should be, if the board is actually controlling the corporation as they should be) indistinguishable.

I do not believe the "moral territory" is slippery at all. Even though I am by no means an absolutist (there is always some gray area, and some things are nothing BUT gray), I think the "moral territory" here is quite clear.

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You think the moral thing to do is to disregard the laws of the country you're operating in (assuming that it was a legal request for information, something like a US subpoena)? Just because you disapprove of their criminal justice system?

There's a slippery slope here. I would like to avoid handing dissident information over to governments in general (and that includes my own), but if a country cannot enforce its own laws on companies operating in their territory but based elsewhere, there's a whole lo

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I think he's saying that Bob middle manager doesn't really fancy the possibility of being included in the list of dissidents to be tortured or disappeared, so to expect him not to comply is unreasonable.

The only way for Vodaphone to avoid having their hands dirty is not to have any employees in country with enough authority to be able to comply, which basically means they would have to get out entirely.

Similarly, the only way to avoid captains turning over cargoes to pirates when boarded would be to avoid t

Responsibility Diffused

Why is it that corporations are expected, even encouraged, to act amorally, but we expect morality to be enforced by our government? It's like a sick dodge that lets us pretend that we are moral people, while acting amorally out of sheer greed. Sure, some people invest only in socially responsible, environmentally sound companies, but that is rare. Most people invest in companies that do things that those people themselves would never do. And they do so without feeling bad, or even slightly conflicted, beca

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Because I can vote for my government officials. Corporations exist to increase the public wealth. Government is supposed to set the boundaries that they can operate in. If Microsoft uses its monopoly position to stifle competition, it is the government who should step in. Saying "please be nice, Microsoft" would be rather unproductive.

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Asking a corporation to be nice won't work, of course. But why do people continue to invest in companies that do things those people would never do? It seems that if we really wanted to end corporate injustice, rather than having our surrogates, the government, sanction the companies, we could do so ourselves by refusing to invest in them.

But we don't stop, because the diffusion of responsibility means that the investors will not feel badly about the actions the company takes on their behalf. Without ending

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If we have a problem with the actions of the Egyptian government, then there are numerous ways for us to apply pressure.

And they don't seem to be working. Your idea of sanctions has been tried and tried before ... look at Iran. Did you know that a lot of Iranian people hold United States citizens responsible for the deaths of sick and hungry people in their country. Because we impose sanctions on them (nevermind the UN does it too) and ours are so strict that we refuse them medicine.

If Egypt is acting poorly ...

If Egypt is acting poorly? Take the case of newly released Philip Rizk [nytimes.com] who was held for five days without reason. And the only reason he w

And in other news Vodafone gets a big deal with po

And in other news Vodafone gets a big deal with police to run there phone system.

eh?

"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?

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Starbucks.

Though the nice part for them is Starbucks doesn't operate a comms company in Egypt.

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> Exactly how many companies do you think had their share price rise on the news they sacrified some profits to do the moral thing?

Well, when it's in the news, it's advertisement and will very likely increased the overall profit.
The real question is, how many companies have done the morale thing, without doing a cost/benefit analysis.

Or?

You know, if authorities known for torture, murder, and making people "disappear" demanded something from me, I'd give it to 'em.

Call me an evil capitalist pig, but I don't want to piss off people like that.

yeah?

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.

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and their employees could go to jail.

Jail or "murdered" or just "disappear."

Jesus Christ!

So far the majority opinion (at only about 10 comments) seems to be that this is okay!

What the hell happened to the ethics of Americans? This is no longer the country I grew up in. It makes me sick.

Re:Jesus Christ!

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.

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It was obviously not intended as a "well-reasoned" argument. It was an opinion, nothing more or less. I am perfectly capable of well-reasoned arguments when I wish, but I do have opinions too. Generally, it is easy to distinguish between them!

Corporations have choices about where they operate. It is NOT a valid argument to say "If we did not do this, someone else would." That does not change the ethics of the situation at all. For example, when Google said (as they very openly did) when deciding whether

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Interesting, you automatically assume the first 10 comments ARE Americans? I am, but it's an interesting assumption.

Secondly, what about these ethics? I am a minority here, with my thoughts about right, wrong, morality, and ethics. But I'm curious - what ethics do you speak of? Acting for the good of the Egyptian people vs. acting for the good of the company/shareholders/profit? How about acting for the good of your employees vs. acting for teh good of the Egyptian people? Hm. What SHOULD they have d

Hmm...

Some one in the US, or another somewhat free country complaining that multinational companies operating in not so nice countries abide by the not so nice countries' laws.

No duh. They don't want bad things to happen to their employees or such in that country. Sometimes the countries decide to "nationalize" "foreign" industries. I wouldn't want that if I were a multinational company. It's easy to complain about another country sitting here. Why don't you complain to the companies offices in said country for following the local laws. (Heck, the US has laws that basically say that companies and individuals have to turn over what the government whats when it says it needs it.)

As an example look at the previous slashdot article about a TX judge ordering topix to turn over trolls ID info so that they can be personally sued. There is no difference between the two requests to any multinational company. It's a legally valid request from the government. You other obey it or face the consequences.

SHOCK! .com obeys laws of country they operate in.

Surely the BIG question is around Vodafone operating Call Centres in Egypt, that service Vodafone in other countries. (At least Vodafone New Zealand, and i imagine many more). Does this mean Egypt Govt could request access to my call data? Without my knowledge?