Norwegian telecom giant Telenor faces scrutiny over alleged Myanmar junta data handovers

Mizzima Did Telenor’s zest for tapping Myanmar’s lucrative telecom market eventually lead to phone users being imprisoned or even worse? This is the question left hanging as the Norwegian telecom giant Telenor faces renewed legal and political scrutiny over allegations that its former Myanmar subsidiary shared sensitive customer data with the military junta after the February 2021 coup, including call records linked to prominent democracy activist and former lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw before his arrest and eventual execution. The information supplied by the telecom giant allegedly included names, physical addresses, Facebook and bank accounts, location data and call logs. The serious allegations are at the centre of a class-action lawsuit filed in Norway on behalf of more than 1,200 Myanmar customers whose data was allegedly passed to military authorities after the coup. The case was filed by the Justice and Accountability Initiative, with support from the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations, known as SOMO, and the Open Society Justice Initiative. TELENOR COMPLIES According to reporting by The Guardian and The Observer, based on documents obtained by Norwegian broadcaster NRK, Telenor complied with most post-coup data requests from Myanmar authorities. The reports said Telenor’s own transparency material showed the company complied with 96 per cent of 153 data requests it received from the authorities. The lawsuit alleges that Telenor Myanmar shared call logs, location-related information and other customer metadata with the junta, exposing anti-coup activists and dissidents to arrest, imprisonment, torture and, in some cases, execution. Telenor has denied legal responsibility, saying it operated under extreme pressure from the military authorities and had to protect the lives of its local employees. HIP-HOP DEMOCRACY ACTIVIST One of the most serious allegations concerns Phyo Zeya Thaw, a former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker, hip-hop artist and democracy activist. According to the Open Society Justice Initiative, the military requested logs for a phone number owned by Zeya Thaw on 31 October 2021. He was arrested in Yangon on 18 November 2021, sentenced to death in a closed trial in January 2022 and executed by hanging in July 2022 with three other pro-democracy activists. Myanmar independent media outlet People’s Spring, citing The Observer, reported that the request came from the junta-controlled communications ministry under the justification of “national security”. The article said the requested numbers included one used by Phyo Zeya Thaw, who had been moving between safe houses and changing SIM cards to avoid being tracked after the coup. The uploaded report prepared for Mizzima also notes that the case has renewed debate over telecom companies’ human rights responsibilities, customer data protection and corporate ethics in authoritarian environments. JUNTA ARREST People’s Spring also described the day of Zeya Thaw’s arrest, saying he was staying at a safe house in Dagon Seikkan Township in Yangon when soldiers surrounded the building. His wife, Tha Zin, later questioned how the military had located them. Plaintiffs and rights groups now allege that telecom data handed over by Telenor may have helped the junta track him down. The Irrawaddy reported that plaintiffs claimed Telenor Myanmar handed over Zeya Thaw’s phone data on 31 October 2021 with the knowledge of its parent company. It also quoted his wife Tha Zin as saying the loss was not only personal but also a loss to Myanmar’s democracy movement. The case also involves civil society activist Aung Thu. The Guardian reported that NRK documents showed Aung Thu’s number was included in a military request in September 2021, when he was already in detention. He was later re-arrested and charged under counter-terrorism laws. Aung Thu was eventually released from prison after serving two-thirds of his sentence. PROMISING TELECOM SECTOR Telenor entered Myanmar during the country’s political opening and became one of the largest mobile operators in the country, helping revolutionizing people’s communications. It launched services in 2014 and later had around 18 million customers before exiting Myanmar in 2022, in the wake of the coup. Rights groups argue that many Myanmar users trusted Telenor as an international company partly owned by the Norwegianstate and expected stronger protection of their personal information. The People’s Spring article notes that Telenor’s Myanmar revenue exceeded US$800 million in 2020 and that the company had more than 16 million users nationwide at that time. Its blue three-petal logo had become associated by many users with Myanmar’s opening and greater connectivity before the coup. After the military takeover in February 2021, Telenor came under increasing pressure from the junta. The company complied with orders to block social media platforms, block websites and shut down parts of the network, according to its own disclosures cited in media reports. Digital rights advocates say such measures helped create a more repressive digital environment for activists, journalists and opposition networks. Telenor has said it complied with orders to share historical metadata, not the content of calls or messages. It has also argued that refusal to comply with military orders could have exposed its local employees to imprisonment, torture or death. In response to questions from The Observer, Telenor said what happened in Myanmar was tragic but that responsibility for how people were treated in Myanmar lay with the military authorities. Rights groups argue that Telenor knew the risks. The Mizzima report, citing The Observer, says Telenor’s internal sustainability team repeatedly warned that releasing the requested data could lead to the arrest of users, but approval was ultimately given. Telenor has said non-compliance could have placed employees in danger. TELENOR EXITS Telenor exited Myanmar in 2022 by selling its business. Civil society groups had warned at the time that the sale risked transferring customer data and telecom infrastructure to entities linked to the military. SOMO has described the exit as “irresponsible disengagement”, saying it left millions of customers exposed to severe human rights risks. The full fallout remains unclear. The Norwegian National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines later found that Telenor failed to carry out adequate human rights due diligence in relation to its Myanmar operations and exit. SOMO said the NCP concluded that Telenor had failed to conduct due diligence proportionate to the severity and likelihood of the risks in Myanmar. Telenor disagreed with several of the NCP’s conclusions. In a December 2025 statement, the company said the NCP had correctly placed primary responsibility for grave human rights violations in Myanmar on the military junta and had acknowledged the difficult dilemmas Telenor