Data belonging to all Internet users in Turkey, including their names and personal information, have been shared with the country’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) for over a year, Medyascope TV reported on Thursday, citing documents of the alleged breach.
Every move made by Turkish netizens, including web sites they visit, WhatsApp communication, phone calls and location data are being shared hourly with the government agency by Turkish Internet service providers, the site said.
Medyascope cited a document dated December 2020, which details the scope of the BTK’s request for the data of millions of Internet users in the country, including format and mode of the data transformation of users.
The document, signed off by BTK vice chairman Fethi Azaklı, also includes a warning to Internet service providers on penalties should they fail to provide the data of the country’s some 89 million users, it said.
Internet and social media censorship in Turkey has been increasing under the almost two-decade rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ankara is only seeking to further censorship and surveillance through new regulations intending to boost government control and restrict social media companies.
According to a 2021 Freedom House report, Internet freedom in Turkey continued to decline for a third year in a row, with hundreds of websites being blocked.
The activity logs, complete with the user’s full name, IP address, the length of a user’s stay on a website are being provided to the BTK in a breach that began a year and a half ago, according to Medyascope TV.
The BTK document refers to the need for “more detailed data of activities on the Internet as a legal and preventative measure,” it said, urging “complete and continuous” compliance of service providers to the data information request.
Turkey’s largest three Internet service providers in terms of subscribers,Turkcell, Türk Telekom and Vodafone, did not respond to Medyascope TV’s questions on the report, it said.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy chairman Onursal Adıgüzel earlier this month took to Twitter to say said that the BTK was consistently asking for user traffic data from service providers. The BTK did not respond to the claim.
The Medyascope TV report arrives as the Turkish government is seeking to pass a bill would criminalize spreading fake news and disinformation online.
The censorship law foresees jail sentences of between one and three years for anyone who is deemed to have publicly disseminated false information regarding national security, public order, or general public health that creates anxiety, fear, or panic among the population or disturbs public peace.
Seven leading journalism organizations based in the country have voiced their concerns, warning that the bill “could lead to one of the heaviest censorship and self-censorship mechanisms” in the history of the Turkish Republic, Reuters reported.
Ahval