Tanzania opposition asks telecoms firm to respond to data-sharing accusation

Tanzania's main opposition party has called for telecoms firm Tigo to respond to a former employee's accusation that the company helped the government track the location of an opponent who was later targeted in a failed assassination attempt.

A former worker at Tigo's parent company, Millicom, told a British court this month that Tigo had shared mobile phone data with the government showing the location of opposition lawmaker Tundu Lissu in the weeks before the attack.

Lissu's car was sprayed with bullets in September 2017 by unknown assailants, according to court filings seen by Reuters.

"I have informed (lawyer) Bob Amsterdam today to start a case against Tigo and the government of Tanzania,” Lissu told a news conference in Dar es Salaam, adding that he does not trust local courts to handle the case.

“We will force Tigo to tell us who they were communicating with. Who from the government asked them to track me 24 hours. They have to tell us names."

In its own court filings this month, Millicom said it had learned in late August or early September 2017 of concerns "about a local politician’s mobile phone data being passed to a government agency".

It said the individuals involved were disciplined and additional training was provided to Millicom subsidiaries about how to respond to requests for company data.

The company denied allegations in a lawsuit filed by the former employee, Michael Clifford, that Clifford had been dismissed for raising concerns about the tracking of Lissu's location data.

The court filings were first reported on Tuesday by British newspaper The Guardian. Spokespeople for Millicom and the Tanzanian government did not respond to requests for comment by Reuters on Wednesday.

Tanzania's then-president John Magufuli condemned the attack on Lissu in 2017. No one has been arrested or charged in connection with it.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who succeeded Magufuli after his death in 2021, pledged to lift restrictions on government critics imposed by Magufuli, but rights groups say authorities have been targeting opponents before local elections in December. The government has denied the accusations.

On Monday, Lissu was among several opposition leaders briefly arrested by police before they could march to protest against what they said were killings and abductions of government critics.