Phone tapping by local authorities leads to economic hardship for phone owners

May 25, 2009

HURFOM: Phone owners suffer as local authorities are forcing them to record client’s conversations. This has resulted in decrease in phone usage, as clients are wary of surveillance.

Local authorities are forcing community phone owners to carry out surveillance on clients by recording phone conversations in Kaleinaung Sub – Township, Khaw Zar Sub – Township and Lamine sub – Township. In these regions, cell phones do not work, and privately owned phones are available in certain homes, to which cell phone numbers are routed for incoming and out going calls.

Phone owners have been facing financial difficulties due to decreasing customer use as a result of surveillance, and increasing taxes from the local authorities. Phone owners are give permission to use their phone through the negotiation with the local authorities and the exchange of money. Owner’s expenses include monthly payments of 2,000 Kyat to the local army battalion, and 40,000 Kyat to the military intelligence forces.

In addition, the phone owners must pay 150,000 kayt per month to the mountaintop antenna service, which distributes the phone’s signal regionally. “We only collect 200 Kyat for answering the phone and 300 Kyat a minute for a phone call to Thailand,” one local phone owner said. “If people transfer money, say 100,000 Kyat from abroad, we collect 3,500 Kyat for the service. However things are less advantageous for this business now because the authority is forcing us to record what our clients are saying on the phone.”

Worried about security, most phone usurers are less inclined to use the phone long periods of time. “I can’t talk freely with my child. Also, I dare not answer when my children ask me about the village because, the phone owner will be recording my word when I talk,” said Ma Yi, a 50 year old Yapu villager.

Every two days authorities come and check the recordings for who was using the phone, where they called, what they said, and who they talking with.

If they do not record client’s conversations, phone owners worry that the authorities will confiscate their phones; they feel they are left with little choice and have to follow what the authorities demand. But it is a command that is cutting into business by causing phone use to decline.

“If the people transfer money, they need to go Ye Township to make the withdrawal. We have to spend at least 10,000 Kyat to get to Ye Township. It becomes economically untenable for people to try and withdraw less then 200,00 Kyat at a time,” explained a phone owner from Ya-pu village. “So people, rather then making transfers, will borrow money form their neighbors at a higher interest rate. Or for smaller withdrawals, villagers will wait till there is a need for other withdrawals to be made, and then when the money is enough, we will go to make the withdrawal. But now the debt is becoming overwhelming to our business, and things are not running as smoothly because of the clients concerns.”

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News