MTN Group Limited
Headquartered in South Africa, MTN provides internet access and mobile services to more than 290 million customers across 16 markets in Africa and the Middle East. It offers voice and data plans as well as cloud infrastructure.
MTN, Africa’s largest telecommunications operator, sustained a strong momentum in improving transparency this year, rising from sixth place in the previous ranking to second place—second only to Telefónica. The gains were driven by score increases across all three RDR categories: the company strengthened governance disclosures, introduced a comprehensive advertising content policy, and enhanced measures related to user data protection.
However, MTN’s transparency gains may be tested by the regulatory and political realities of the markets in which it operates. In April 2025, MTN confirmed a data breach affecting approximately 5,700 users in Ghana, underscoring ongoing vulnerabilities. The company enhanced its security auditing disclosures and stated that it would notify affected users in the event of any breach.
Just over three years after joining the Global Network Initiative (GNI) in 2022, a multistakeholder forum promoting freedom of expression and privacy in the technology sector, MTN made the decision to withdraw from the organization in early 2026, alongside Yahoo. The reasons for the departure have not been clarified. GNI membership requires periodic independent assessments of participating companies’ policies and practices in freedom of expression and privacy. MTN’s quitting removed an important mechanism of scrutiny over the company’s human rights performance. The decision of the company will also affect its transparency in human rights due diligence and multi-stakeholder engagement in the future if it does not establish alternative arrangements in these areas.1
Meanwhile, turbulent geopolitical dynamics continued to affect MTN’s operations across multiple markets. In February 2026, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo alleged that the company provided mobile phone and Internet services in rebel-held areas. Earlier, civil society groups called on MTN to investigate its role in enabling human rights violations by authorities of the Republic of Congo.
In South Asia, the company formally exited Afghanistan in April 2025 amid increasing instability following the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Subsequently, a grand jury of the United States Department of Justice initiated a probe into the conduct of MTN’s former Afghan subsidiary and its ongoing operations in Iran.
MTN’s Iranian affiliate, Irancell, has long drawn criticism for its role in enabling government censorship. The recent U.S.-Iranian war and the street protests in the country added further pressure to the company’s existence in the region. In January 2026, Iranian authorities ousted Irancell’s chief executive without prior notice to MTN, for delays in executing a government shutdown order during recent demonstrations. Since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, the Iranian government cut off the Internet of the country for a long time. MTN’s latest transparency report continued to exclude Iran from disclosures about network shutdowns, citing the company’s minority ownership stake.
The 2026 RDR Index: Telco Giants Edition covers policies that were active on August 31, 2025. Policies that came into effect after August 31, 2025 were not evaluated for this ranking.
Scores reflect the average score across the services we evaluated, with each service weighted equally.
We rank companies on their governance, and on their policies and practices affecting freedom of expression and privacy.
MTN placed second in governance transparency this year, with a gain of more than eight points in this category. In addition to maintaining a formal human rights commitment that includes AI-related activities (G1), the company retained a top-down oversight mechanism for monitoring human rights issues (G2), provided remedies to users (G6a), and conducted regular human rights risk and impact assessments (G4a). However, the scope of MTN’s due diligence did not extend to several areas closely linked to users’ rights, such as the enforcement of its own policies (G4b), targeted advertising (G4c), and its algorithmic systems (G4d). The company also continued to offer zero-rating services without disclosing any human rights risk assessment associated with these services (G4e).
With the second-largest score increase in this category, MTN ranked second in transparency regarding its policies and practices affecting users’ freedom of expression. MTN published a brand new policy ruling the ads content (F1b, F3b), but it failed to reveal how targeted advertising is managed on its platform (F1c, F3c) or provide data on the volume of advertisements restricted (F4c). Nor did it report the number of messages, calls, or accounts it blocked to enforce its own policies (F4a, F4b). MTN’s transparency report shared relatively detailed information on how it responds to government demands that may affect users’ access to information (F5a), including shutdowns (F10), as well as some relevant data (F6).
MTN provided very limited transparency regarding its collection and management of user information. The company did not commit to data minimization in its data collection (P3a) and did not indicate whether it infers user information for targeted advertising (P3b). It also did not disclose how long user data is retained or whether information is deleted after account termination (P6). More positively, MTN provided relatively comprehensive disclosures on how it handles government requests for user information (P10a). Compared with its peer telco companies, it offered stronger transparency on its vulnerability reporting mechanisms (P14). The company also noted that it would notify affected users if a data breach occurs (P15).
1 MTN received credit as a GNI member under G4 and G5 indicators in this ranking, as the company remained a member and received GNI assessment before the policy cutoff date for this research. Changes to its membership status will be reflected in future assessments.