Egypt govt forced Vodafone to send out texts

Vodafone has released a statement about how it and other telcos in the area were forced to send out propaganda text messages to the people of Egypt.

“Under the emergency powers provisions of the Telecoms Act, the Egyptian authorities can instruct the mobile networks of Mobinil, Etisalat and Vodafone to send messages to the people of Egypt,” the statement read.

“They have used this since the start of the protests. These messages are not scripted by any of the mobile network operators and we do not have the ability to respond to the authorities on their content.”

The Vodafone Group said it has protested to the authorities that the current situation regarding these messages “is unacceptable”.

“We have made clear that all messages should be transparent and clearly attributable to the originator.”

Earlier this week Vodafone closed its Egypt call centre and increased staff capacity in its Auckland centres by around 100 following political unrest in Egypt.