Telecommunication company Telefonica, which provides services under the name Movistar in Latin America, announced that more than 20 percent of its active users were listened to by government institutions in Venezuela last year.
The GSM company, which has 7.73 million users in Venezuela, which has a population of approximately 28 million, is able to determine who the line owners call in 2021, how much they talk, what they talk and their short messages; He explained that 997 thousand 679, that is, 12 percent of users, were asked for information such as their personal information on the internet, identity card information, address and location.
According to Venezuelan law, in order to be able to wiretap, the request must be approved by a judge and reported to the Ministry of Justice and recorded, except in exceptional cases such as emergencies and flagrante delicto by the criminal police. However, the report states that wiretapping requests are not made by court order, but by police, military, intelligence units and even police academies. It is recorded that many security guards, including soldiers and police, are among the people followed.
Human rights experts state that the method of listening and monitoring is used within the legal framework to solve police cases in all countries of the world, but the rate of wiretapping in Venezuela is far above reasonable rates. According to the data of the company, which also provides GSM services in other countries, the number of users requested by state institutions for listening and information is 0.28 percent in Brazil; In Uruguay, it is 0.09 percent.
“Human rights violations are committed”
Gabriela Buada, the director of Caleidoscopio Humano, which carries out activities on human rights violations, freedom of expression and the right to receive information in Venezuela, said that the extent of the government’s respect for personal rights and interference with the freedom of communication has reached alarming levels, and the emergence of mass eavesdropping is a concrete indication of this. says it is.
Speaking to VOA Turkish, Buada says that the government has increased its control mechanisms over society, especially in the last 10 years, and that opposition voices, especially journalists and human rights defenders, are wanted to be silenced.
“It would not be surprising for anyone that the eavesdropping and tracking rates in government-run telecommunications and GSM companies are much higher than 20 percent,” says Buada, noting that access to many websites is prohibited in the country.