By 
Oluwatobi Ibikunle | Asia Team Researcher, Global Human Rights Defence.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against the Norwegian telecommunications company Telenor, alleging that it exposed thousands of users to repression by sharing their personal data with the military junta after Myanmar’s 2021 coup.
A class action lawsuit has been filed against Telenor, a Norwegian telecommunications company, on behalf of over 1,200 people whose data was allegedly shared with the military junta following the 2021 coup. The civil class action was filed by a Swedish non-profit, Justice and Accountability Initiative (JAI), in Norway.
The lawsuit alleges that Telenor (its Myanmar subsidiary) shared the call logs and location data of suspected political opponents of the Junta, thereby exposing them and leading to the execution and prosecution of prominent activists. The lawsuit claims that Telenor failed to take adequate measures, thereby endangering customers, and is therefore liable for 9,000 euros per customer whose data was shared. Telenor has denied responsibility in response to the pre-action notice. They claimed they were legally required to comply with the military’s requests and had no choice.
Beini Ye, a legal counsel at the Open Society Justice Initiative, has stated that, if successful, this case would be the first ever to hold a telecom company to account for failing to sufficiently protect user data from access by an authoritarian regime and would serve as a precedent for other such cases.
