Germany: Deutsche Telekom admits to 84 cases of “serious violations” of laws, banking secrecy and privacy

Most of the “serious law infringements” observed at Deutsche Telekom by the KPMG’s specialized investigators are related to personal screening actions, i.e. building up files on the private life and habits of the company’s employees, trading parties, journalists or unionists. Then, there are cases of financial screening, where the financial and tax situation of the people targeted was uncovered in a completely illegal fashion. Thirdly, hundreds of thousands of phone calls were listened in, mostly for people outside the group. This is the appalling evaluation of the research commanded by Deutsche Telekom to shed light over all the activities of the “KS3” unit, the company’s internal safety department, between 1998 and 2007. This case was brought to light in May 2008 after Deutsche Telekom pressed charges against a detective agency which tried to blackmail the company by presenting the case to the public (see our dispatch No. 080428). Before spreading, the case was first presented as a limited operation, launched after strategic information leaked through in the German press. “A cultural renewal entails remembering the past. We don’t want to forget it by building a wall of silence and ignorance” declared Mr. Balz. KMPG’s investigators worked from 100,000 archive documents from DT’s safety department. They notably found data directly coming from the police and internal revenue, therefore gained illegally. In the light of the offenses studied and testimonies from former KS3 managers, as well as detectives outside DT, it seems that the infringements didn’t answer to any conscious logic or plans but rather followed the will of the group’s managers – big or small. The report doesn’t dwell on the identity and the number of people responsible, but indicates that there are or will be criminal prosecution against the offenders.