Nokia Leaving Finland over E-Mail Law?
The threat expressed in the headline below (and several like them, was attributed to "an unnamed civil servant." Nokia has denied the claim that it threatened to leave the country has any credence -- stating that the newspaper article contained "many mistakes and misunderstandings." Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen also denied that Nokia had threatened to leave the country, but did accept that talks with Nokia about the law had occurred.
"I have not heard about such an ultimatum. I have discussed (the law) with many companies including Nokia, and I have never heard that they have made such a threat."
- Matti Vanhanen, Prime Minister of Finland -
>> Nokia Threat to Quit Finland 'unless law changed'
AFP (Helsinki)
February 1, 2009
tinyurl.com
Mobile phone giant Nokia threatened to leave its native Finland if a change to laws blocking companies from monitoring employee emails was not introduced, a respected Finnish newspaper said Sunday.
Nokia spokeswoman Arja Suominen subsequently rejected the accusation, telling the STT news agency that "Nokia has in no way threatened to move," claiming the "Helsingin Sanomat article is quite polemic. It contains many mistakes and misunderstandings."
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen also denied that politicians had been pressured by the company to change the law.
"I have not heard about such an ultimatum. I have discussed (the law) with many companies including Nokia, and I have never heard that they have made such a threat," he told national broadcaster Yle.
The daily quoted an unnamed civil servant as telling the paper that "Nokia lobbied very hard for the proposed law to be unanimously approved... (The message) was very clear: if the law was not approved, Nokia would leave Finland."
The company generates around 1.3 billion euros (1.7 billion dollars) worth of tax revenues and employs 16,000 people in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat said.
The Nordic country is currently considering loosening a law on the surveillance of electronic information that today bans companies from reading their employees' emails.
According to Helsingin Sanomat, Nokia began lobbying politicians for a new electronic information surveillance law after it became suspicious that that one of its employees had emailed classified information on new network equipment to its Chinese competitor Huawei.
The company filed a police complaint and began poring over its staff email correspondence to try to find proof of the corporate espionage.
In doing so, Nokia was breaking the current law which aims to protect workers' right to confidential communication, but charges against the company were never filed due to lack of evidence.
The new data retention law proposal, called Lex Nokia, would meanwhile allow employers to monitor their workers' electronic correspondence for information including the sender and recipient of the email, the time it was sent and the size of attachments.
Law experts in Finland have insisted that the new law, expected to be voted through parliament later this month, would be a blow to employee privacy rights. ###
>> Nokia Denies Threat to Leave Finland
Helsingin Sanomat
1st February 2009
cellular-news.com
Nokia has denied claims that the company would consider moving its HQ out of Finland if current laws on electronic surveillance were not changed. The Helsingin Sanomat newspaper had claimed that Nokia wanted the law, which bans companies from inspecting private emails sent from company computers - to be relaxed.
The firm apparently investigated one of its employees who the firm suspected of sending confidential information to Huawei - and in doing so spied in the email communications from the employee. Although this was illegal, Helsingin Sanomat said that no charges were pressed due to a lack of evidence.
The newspaper claimed that following this incident, Nokia started lobbying lawmakers to have the law changed so that it would be easier to monitor staff emails. A law which relaxes the existing law, nicknamed the ”Lex Nokia” - or officially the bill for an amendment to the Act on Data Protection of Electronic Communications - is to be brought before Parliament in early spring.
However, Nokia has denied the claim that it threatened to leave the country has any credence - stating that the newspaper article contained "many mistakes and misunderstandings."
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen also denied that Nokia had threatened to leave the country, but did accept that talks with Nokia about the law had occurred.
"I have not heard about such an ultimatum. I have discussed (the law) with many companies including Nokia, and I have never heard that they have made such a threat," he told the YLE TV station.
According to some critics, the proposed amendment to the current law would allow companies, schools, libraries, and housing companies to investigate and control Internet users’ e-mail communications, Net surfing, and messaging.
Although Nokia has denied the claims that it threatened to leave the country - this is not the first time the firm has been linked with such an idea. Back in 2001, Nokia's then Chairman Jorma Ollila had said that the company could move out of Finland to avoid the country's high taxes. He gave the government a five year deadline to consider the situation.
In a slightly ironic move, only last April, Sonera Finland moved its customers' e-mail services from a shared e-mail platform in Sweden back to Finland - due to Sweden implementing laws making it easier to spy on emails.
- Eric - |
