Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond. In some cases national laws either oblige telephone companies to install “direct access pipes” or permit government security services to do so themselves. Sometimes the wire-tapping follows judicial authorisation and sometimes it is at the behest of the relevant ministry. The wire taps sometimes permit live access to content and sometimes only metadata – phone numbers addresses, location and duration of both calls and messages. In nine of 29 countries, including Malta, it is unlawful to disclose any aspect of how interception is conducted and some of these have a dubious record relating to human rights, including Egypt, India and Turkey.

Vodaphone’s figures show that Malta is one of the most spied on nations in Europe with 3,773 requests for metadata in 2013 compared with just two in Belgium and three in France. The difference is staggering. The figures make better sense, however, when they are looked at in relation to population. On a per head of population basis Malta has 10 per cent more intercepts than does Italy – 110 intercepts per head of population in Malta compared with 100 in Italy. Privacy campaigners describe the extent of state snooping as a “nightmare scenario” – something they knew did take place but not suspected to be on such a large scale.

This raises the interesting question as to why Malta figures so prominently in the intercepts league table. Why Malta? Why this little island with its reputation as a Mediterranean jewel of courtesy, harmony, good will and wellbeing? Topping the league table of phone intercepts – why?

Is there some post 9/11 apocalyptic Al-Qaeda threat targeted on St Paul’s bay? Are the massed forces of Putin’s Russia about to annex little Comino? What is the existential threat that imperils the islands? There is none ... and everyone knows it.

One possible explanation is that the requests are made by the police rather than the security services, and they relate to relatively low-level criminality. Many of Italy’s 600,000 requests a year – remember lower than Malta’s on a per capita basis – relate to serious organised crime. This is reasonable because intelligence-led policing is an important weapon in combating mafia-type crime. But Malta does not face these types of threats. The figures suggest Malta is somewhat over-enthusiastic in licensing its snooping capabilities.

Another possibility is that here in Malta security investigations are authorised by the Ministry alone without prior judicial approval (though there are safeguards after the event). If this is the case it raises the possibility that the snooping may be disproportionate to the supposed threat. More worryingly, because of the legal prohibition against disclosures relating to interceptions, it leaves open the possibility that an unquantifiable volume of intercepts relate neither to crime nor to the security of the state but to matters that have a political nuance – which is not something ‘big brother’ should be interested in at all.

The state has the uncomfortable and difficult task of balancing the right to privacy for its citizens against its obligation to offer appropriate protection against substantial threats. In relation to other countries worldwide the Vodaphone figures for Malta suggest that this balance could be out of kilter. This is something that requires explanation because, at the end of the day, law and order can and will only be properly secured with the consent and active cooperation of the population.

Andrew Willis

Visiting Professor

Department of Criminology

University of Malta