AT&T has come under fire for revealing that it shares and sells customers' communication records to the National Security Agency (NSA) and other U.S. intelligence agencies.
The network operator has sparked off a debate after it said it is not required to disclose to its shareholders what it does with the customer data.
On Thursday, December 5, AT&T sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and revealed that it protects customer information; however, the carrier also complies with government requests for access to records but "only to the extent required by law."
In light of the recent revelations of NSA spying, earlier in November, shareholders of both AT&T and Verizon had sent resolutions to the two companies with the demand that they publish frequent reports on how customer information is shared by them for government surveillance purposes.
In the letter, AT&T asked the SEC to agree that the carrier can exclude the shareholder proposal from its proxy statement, which the shareholders are expected to vote on at the carrier's annual meeting in 2014.
"It's outrageous that AT&T is trying to block the shareholder proposal," said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of Northern California. "Customers have a right to know how often their private information is ending up in the government's hands."
AT&T, however, has justified its stance by saying that it can reject the proposal on several grounds, with the primary reason being that it relates to its "ordinary business operations" and, therefore, should not be controlled by shareholders but the management and the board.
"Management is in the best position to determine what policies and procedures are necessary to protect customer privacy, to ensure compliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements in the states and countries in which we operate, and to apprise AT&T customers of the steps that are taken to protect their privacy," noted the company's letter to the SEC.
AT&T also notes in the letter that if it published transparency reports, then the carrier will be limiting itself to disclosing its responses to law enforcement requests as any data pertaining to the government's intelligence surveillance activities would be classified information. The carrier went on to note that the supposed transparency reports, which are published by Yahoo and Google, face the same dilemma.
However, not everyone agrees. "AT&T is trying to prevent the vital issue of customer privacy from coming before its shareholders. This issue is an important one for customers and shareholders alike, and we feel strongly that it should be on AT&T's ballot this spring," said Eric Sumberg, spokesman for New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
