NAYPYITAW, 27 July 2021, (TON): Norway’s Telenor will transfer the call data records of its 18 million Myanmar subscribers to a military-linked Lebanese company when it exits the country, raising alarm among activists who fear the junta will get its hands on the data and use it to make arrests.

The company announced on July 8 that it will sell its Myanmar operations to M1 Group, which has been criticised for running mobile networks under dictatorships in Syria, Sudan, and other authoritarian regimes where state surveillance is routine.

A UN Fact-Finding Mission identified M1 Group as a shareholder of Irrawaddy Green Towers, a company that leases phone towers to Mytel, which is part-owned by the military.

A Telenor spokesperson confirmed that the sale would include call data records.

The spokesperson told media “Telenor Group is selling the entire operations of Telenor Myanmar to M1 Group, which means that M1 will continue running the business and offer services to the customers.”

Experts and activists say the data could be highly dangerous in the hands of the junta.

“Who you have called and where you have been is very revealing information,” Lucy Purdon, Policy Director at the campaign group Privacy International, told media.

She said “she noted that phone subscribers in Myanmar were obliged to provide ID cards and addresses when they registered SIM cards. “This makes people extremely vulnerable if shared with authorities.”