• Norway's PST security service and Kripos charged Telenor in separate investigations connected with its former Myanmar operation
  • Kripos says Telenor Myanmar repeatedly disclosed historical customer traffic data to the military regime after the 2021 coup

The fact

Norwegian authorities searched Telenor's Fornebu headquarters on 15 September after opening two investigations connected with the group's former Myanmar operation. Telenor ASA has been charged in both cases, one concerning suspected sanctions breaches and the other suspected complicity in crimes against humanity.

Kripos says Telenor Myanmar repeatedly provided historical customer traffic data to the military regime between the February 2021 coup and the completion of Telenor's exit in March 2022. The company has not been convicted, and the allegations remain under investigation.

Telenor says no individuals have been charged or are under investigation and that it is cooperating with police. The company has also said employees in Myanmar faced imprisonment, torture or death if they refused orders from the military authorities.

The Assessment

Mobile networks create records as part of normal operation, but how much data is retained, for how long and who may obtain it depends on the system and local law. That becomes a much harder governance problem when an authority demanding access is itself accused of serious abuses.

An operator can still decide in advance how access is approved, how disclosures are logged, when a request is escalated and how long records are retained within legal requirements. Those controls cannot remove coercion, but they determine how much data is available and whether the company can later reconstruct who authorised access and why.

For BTW readers, operators in high-risk markets need those controls before political conditions collapse. Selling the business later does not erase the record of earlier disclosures, so data governance and exit planning have to be designed while the company still has room to make those decisions.

What to watch

Watch whether either investigation proceeds to indictment and what evidence emerges about the data requests, internal approvals and disclosures involved. The sanctions and crimes-against-humanity allegations should be tracked separately because they depend on different conduct and evidence. Any decision to narrow, drop or prosecute either case will make the legal exposure clearer.