Given the lack of clarity in the law, we asked the authorities for guidance and were advised that we were not permitted to disclose any of the information we hold related to agency and authority demands for lawful interception and access to communications data. Subsequent to this, other operators in Germany began to publish information related to some of the law enforcement demands they have received and we understand that publication may now be permissible.

However, we are concerned that the information disclosed to date may in fact act as a significant barrier to the kind of meaningful transparency necessary to maintain public trust in Germany. Whilst other operators appear to be following a methodology similar to that used by Vodafone Germany in recording statistics related to law enforcement demands (and indeed the demand volumes recorded for Vodafone Germany are closely comparable to those reported by other operators of a similar scale), other operators’ disclosures to date:

• present only a partial view of law enforcement demands (for example, they exclude the effect of German agency and authority automated access systems which allow rapid and large-scale interrogation of a central database of customer records);

• cannot be reconciled with the authorities’ publication of the number of warrants issued each year (with the potential for significant confusion as a result of wide variations in recording and reporting approaches, as explained earlier in this report); and

• remain potentially unlawful and therefore subject to prohibition in future, notwithstanding the authorities’ assurances received immediately prior to publication of this report.