Airtel spying on internet traffic
A report published on Medium said that Airtel was monitoring internet traffic of millions of web users from India. According to the report, any unencrypted traffic that is routed through US based internet company CloudFlare, which contains 2 million+ sites, is being intercepted by Airtel. This development comes just a month after Airtel was accused of spying on its 3G subscribers.
Experts in legal services related to software say that even if a code is meant to improve user experience, no internet service provider can inject codes without their subscribers' knowledge.
A Bengaluru-based programmer, Thejesh GN, claimed that Airtel was injecting lines of javascript codes into its 3G subscribers' browsing sessions, thereby tracking their browsing patterns. He revealed that Airtel, in collaboration with Ericsson, was using Israel-based Flash Networks' services to inject the code. According to programmers, Flash Networks enables mobile service operators to insert their own content/advertisements by intercepting their subscribers' browsing sessions.
Responding to Thejesh's allegation, Airtel reiterated their privacy policy in a statement, saying, "As a responsible corporate, we have the highest regard for customer privacy and we follow a policy of zero tolerance with regard to the confidentiality of customer data."
Thejesh uploaded the code in question to code-repository website GitHub. However, the files were taken down and Thejesh received a legal notice from Flash Networks claiming that he had committed a criminal offence by exposing proprietary code. Airtel responded to the allegations by saying that it was a "standard solution deployed by telcos globally to help their customers keep track of their data usage".
In a statement, Airtel denied any connection with the legal notice served to Thejesh, saying,"We are also surprised at the Cease & Desist notice served by Flash Networks to Thejesh GN, and categorically state that we have no relation, whatsoever, with the notice."
Airtel responded to the Medium report saying, "This is completely baseless and incorrect. As a policy, Airtel does not block or sniff any content. Only in the case of instructions or orders from the government or the courts, specified URLs are blocked."
