Executive Summary:

A new leaked dataset reveals the Chinese company Geedge Networks’ business in Myanmar and exposes a significant number of telecommunications companies that are implementing sophisticated surveillance and censorship technology on behalf of the illegal Myanmar military junta. [...].

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[...] the hardware, software and support provided by Geedge Networks to the Myanmar military junta enables the tracking of network traffic at the individual level and can identify the geographic location of mobile subscribers in real time [...] the junta has an enhanced capability to effectively track down, arrest, torture and kill human rights defenders, journalists and revolutionary forces across the country. The military junta can do so with the direct assistance of telecommunications companies in Myanmar exposed in the dataset – including ATOM (formerly Telenor Myanmar), Mytel, Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), Ooredoo Myanmar, Frontiir, StreamNet , Golden TMH Telecom, Internet Maekhong Network (IM-Net), Myanmar Broadband Telecom (MBT), Myanmar Telecommunication Network (MTN), Campana, Global Technology Group and China Unicom – that are integral to the set-up of a national firewall for the Myanmar junta.

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By providing hardware and software to the illegal Myanmar military junta, Geedge may be aiding and abetting in the commission of crimes against humanity, including the acts of torture and killing, carried out by members of the junta within a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. [...] In the meantime, Geedge Networks is limiting the rights to freedom of expression, association, and digital movement of the people of Myanmar. [...].

Telecommunications companies identified in the Geedge dataset as supporting the junta’s online surveillance machinery should be held to account for the serious risks of online and offline violence, and de facto harms such as arrests, torture and killings, of Myanmar civilians.

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