Vodafone employee had passed on Christina Sammut's phone bill to killer

A Vodafone employee who allegedly gave 'private' data to Kenneth Gafà to track down Christina Sammut, whom he shot dead in her car in Mgarr, has been dismissed from the company.

While Maltastar.com reported that the man has been dismissed from the mobile telephony company for giving out the data which led to Gafa tracking down his former lover to kill her, a Vodafone statement denied that the employee had access to such information.

In a statement, Vodafone said that it takes the privacy of its customers’ information "extremely seriously and to this effect, the Company has in place detailed compliance requirements for all of its employees to safeguard against disclosure of sensitive data."

"In this particular case, the individual concerned did not follow Vodafone’s strict data privacy compliance requirements and disclosed Christina Sammut’s itemized bill to a third party. At no point in time did the former Vodafone employee divulge information relating to the subscriber’s location. The employee is no longer employed with Vodafone Malta."

Vodafone Malta sad it was deeply saddened by Christina Sammut’s death and is working closely with the police to provide them with any necessary help in their investigations."

Sammut had already been threatened by Gafa with a knife, and the police has come under fire for failing to take action on several reports filed at a police station which were never communicated to the Vice Squad.

Fixed, mobile telephony companies and internet service providers are bound to provide police and security services with location data in their investigation of “serious crimes”. Such data includes incoming and outgoing telephone numbers, subscribers’ details, Internet protocol addresses, log-in and log-out times of Internet access and email services, and location data identifying the geographic location of mobile phones.

While the information ostensibly improves police investigators’ crime-solving, the police are legally entitled to request personal data orally in urgent cases, and service providers must provide the data without undue delay.

Even more seriously, such information can be handed over without a magistrate’s order. The only type of query that needed a Court’s judicial review – an effective warrant – is if this was a ‘fishing expedition’ that did not focus on a specific investigation or specific individuals under reasonable suspicion.

Telephony companies and ISPs store data for periods up to two years for any investigation that constitutes “serious crime” – anything that could lead to imprisonment of over one year.