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The giant German telecommunication company is under investigation by national prosecutors for a presumed breach of privacy, after having spied on the phone calls of its managers, journalists and even board members.

According to Der Spiegel newspaper, the former monopoly incumbent operator - still 31.7% owned by the German government - illegally monitored the phone calls of parts of its staff during 2005-2006 when the company was laying off workers. It seems the company hired an outside agency to monitor contacts between members of its supervisory board and journalists.

The company has partially admitted the allegations saying the monitoring was carried out to find out who was leaking information to the press. Rene Obermann, the chief executive of the group, stated the company had not been aware of the issue and that the illegal actions were taken by the security department of the company, which has been dissolved in the meantime. "I am shaken to the core by these allegations. We take the situation most seriously. We have called in the public prosecutor's office and will support them in their full investigation of these allegations" he said.

The company also claimed that the calls were not listened to, and that the investigation was just trying to establish the date, the duration of the calls and what phone numbers board members had called. "The allegations made against the company do not relate to any unlawful use of the content of calls - in other words they do not concern the tapping of calls.(...) Call records are details of the time, duration and participants of calls" was the company's statement.

Legal expert Thomas Hoeren said that in Germany there had been more and more cases of companies watching their employees, which is not an issue as actually this is allowed by the law. However, Deutsche Telekom broke more than privacy laws by collecting all the telephone data from their CEOs and the people supervising the company which is not only a violation of data protection or privacy regulations but also a violation of telecommunications secrecy, which is protected under criminal law. If a company allows its employees to use the telephones in their offices for private use, as was Deutsche Telekom's case, they are no longer considered as employees but also as private persons. So, the company was not allowed to monitor its employees' telephone connections. Hoeren also stated there was no justification for a company to violate telecommunications secrecy and he also considered there was an implicit violation of press freedom.

"The interesting problem in this case is that state attorneys are now investigating what happened at Deutsche Telekom, but this can only lead to a punishment for individuals acting as representatives of Deutsche Telekom. The company as such is out of bounds. What people now want are increased sanctions against the company, not just against the individuals behind the company. In the current situation, Deutsche Telekom can only get a fine of perhaps 25,000 euros, which is nothing for them" said the expert.

Prosecutors are examining now whether or not to open a case of violation of data protection laws against Deutsche Telekom.

Prosecutors investigate Deutsche Telekom over data misuse (29.05.2008)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9153

Prosecutors probe Deutsche Telekom on data misuse (29.05.2008)
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWEA8339200...

Prosecutors probe Deutsche Telekom (29.05.2008)
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jjHggMdkSqAgBRq4C243Fj88zOQQD90V82I...

Telekom Breaks More than Privacy Laws in Criminal Spy Case (27.05.2008)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3363041,00.html