Home Feature A brutal call

A brutal call

by Executive Staff

Last summer, demonstrators in Tehran’s central square shouted anti-Nokia slogans following news reports that the Finnish mobile giant had sold technology to the Iranian government allowing the government to monitor its citizens through Iran’s communications networks. This has since sparked a storm of protest actions against Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) — the joint venture between Nokia and the German conglomerate Siemens — including the splashing of green paint (associated with pro-reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi) over Nokia billboards in Iran and calls for a boycott of NSN on social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter.

In Tehran, wholesale vendors told The Guardian newspaper that the demand for Nokia gadgets had fallen by nearly half following the news reports. Millions of Iranians currently use Nokia mobile phones.

Iran is known to be an avid practitioner of Internet filtering, but during the post-elections fall out, many suspected that the Iranian authorities were also implementing similar monitoring systems on mobile phones.

No dial tone for protest

A large portion of Iran’s network traffic is controlled by the telecommunications operator Iran Telecom. One day after the contested presidential election, on June 13, traffic on communications networks came to a near standstill according to an investigation by network security firm Arbor Networks.

When the election unrest began and communications traffic gradually increased, analysts suggested that the halt and subsequent re-start was a result of the Iranian authorities installing filtering and monitoring mechanisms.

The truth of the matter is that NSN did sell a so-called “monitoring center” to Iran Telecom through its Intelligent Solutions division. The product allows the authorities to monitor any network communications, including voice calls, short message service (SMS) traffic, instant messaging and Internet use.

Throughout the turmoil that erupted in Iran following June’s disputed presidential election, media reports suggested the Iranian authorities were practicing a so-called “deep packet inspection.” Through this, the authorities not only block communications but also monitor what kind of data is being passed back and forth between individuals using the country’s networks. Some reports have indicated that the data can also be altered and used for disinformation purposes.

The media flurry over Nokia Siemens’ Iran venture was then followed by further speculation that the company was supplying the Iranian regime with spyware, software installed on devices that collects information about users without their knowledge.

Nokia Siemens has denied the spyware allegations and stated it had supplied Iran only with “lawful intercept” capability in order to monitor local phone calls. The companies had not, they said, provided the Iranian authorities with either deep packet inspection or Internet filtering tools.

Nokian ethics

Ben Roome, head of media relations at Nokia Siemens, told Executive in a telephone interview that the wire tapping function, known as lawful interception, is a standard feature of modern telecommunications networks which was implemented under pressure from the European Union and the United States to “roll out those new networks.”

When asked about the interception capabilities provided by the server package sold to Iran by Nokia Siemens, Roome explained that law enforcement cannot scan broad and random swaths of any communications network.

“You need to know the telephone number you want to wiretap. You can’t, for example, scan a network for keywords. The request has to be made by law enforcement agencies to track the number,” he said.

Roome estimates that there are more than 55 million mobile lines in Iran. In no way does he believe it would be plausible for the Iranian authorities to tap millions of phone lines with the gear provided by the NSN monitoring center. After all, said Roome, the package sold to Iran was made up of traditional mobile phone technology due to limits imposed by trade regulations.

But members of Iran’s political opposition, along with rights activists, remain suspicious of the extent of the monitoring capabilities provided by the NSN product.

Issa Saharkhiz, a 56-year old Iranian journalist and former official at Iran’s Culture Ministry, implicated Nokia in his arrest in July by Iranian police. Saharkhiz told his family from an Iranian jail that his Nokia mobile phone helped the authorities to trace him, according to a report by Radio Free Europe. Saharkhiz had been campaigning for the reformist candidate Mehdi Karrubi and was an outspoken critic of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

NSN’s venture in Iran has also triggered some groups to undertake campaigns against the company. The American Islamic Congress (AIC) recently launched a letter-writing campaign against Nokia and has called for a boycott of the company’s products. So far, the AIC’s letter to Nokia Siemens officials has been signed by more than 10,000 people.

Nokia, said the AIC, has the “responsibility” to make sure its technology is used in an ethical manner.

“There are always business deals. The Nazis had lots of deals with big businesses. The point here is that Nokia’s technology is specifically enabling the Iranian regime to monitor and crack down on peaceful protesters,” said AIC North Africa director Dalia Ziada.

AIC has helped organize several public rallies against Nokia in US cities such as New York and Chicago. While Nokia has not responded to the AIC’s campaign efforts, Ziada said she is convinced that the image of the mobile phone conglomerate has been tarnished by its dealings with the Iranian regime. She believes thousands are currently boycotting Nokia products.

“Their strategy appears to be to try to ignore the campaign and make it go away. But people keep sending letters and the Nokia brand is definitely tainted,” said Ziada. “We have a simple request: don’t do business with the Iranian regime and disable the advanced technology. Until Nokia does that, thousands of people will be boycotting their products.”

Pass the hot potato

NSN no longer offers the monitoring service to its clients. The firm sold its Intelligent Solutions business to the German investment firm Perusa Partners Fund 1 LP in March. The product was marketed to around 150 countries while it was still under the control of NSN. However, the company maintains that it did not sell the system to China or Burma, whose governments have a reputation for keeping a close eye on citizens through various monitoring practices.

When asked why NSN decided to sell the Intelligent Solutions business, Roome responded that it simply did not fit with the firm’s “core.”

“We looked at assets and business we wanted to focus on, which is providing telecommunications networks to telecom operators. That business didn’t fit with the core we wanted in the organization,” he said.

NSN is not the first Western technology company that has been accused of aiding governments with poor human rights records through their technology.

In 2005, Yahoo came under fire after rights groups accused the company’s Hong Kong arm of providing information to the Chinese authorities that led to the arrest of a reporter for “divulging state secrets.”

Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said Yahoo’s Hong Kong branch helped China trace reporter Shi Tao’s e-mail account and computer to a message containing an internal communiqué from the communist party.

RSF accused Yahoo of playing the role of a “police informant” in an aim to boost its business ambitions in China. Yahoo responded by saying it had to operate within the realm of each country’s laws.

Tao worked for the Contemporary Business News newspaper in Hunan province before he was arrested and sentenced in April 2005 to 10 years in prison. According to RSF, he was convicted of sending foreign-based websites the internal communist party’s message.

In 2006, the mobile phone provider Azercell in Azerbaijan provided prosecutors with information on political opposition activists who had raised concerns over the alleged rigging of the country’s presidential elections, including recordings of mobile phone conversations.

One of the largest owners of Azercell is the Swedish-Finnish telecommunications firm TeliaSonera which, through its Turkish subsidiary, Turkcell, has a majority share in Azercell.

When confronted about Azercell providing information to the intelligence services, TeliaSonera responded in a similar way to Yahoo in 2005, saying it also had to comply with Azerbaijanian regulations.

It remains to be seen whether high-tech companies will come under further pressure from ethics-conscious consumers. But if the case of NSN in Iran is anything to go by, telecom companies may have to balance their commercial interests with the realities of global human rights issues for some time to come.

Support our fight for economic liberty &
the freedom of the entrepreneurial mind
DONATE NOW

You may also like