Telecommunications companies

América Móvil, S.A.B. de C.V.

Rank: 7th
Score: 32%

Headquartered in Mexico, América Móvil provides wireless service to 286.5 million users in more than 20 countries throughout the Americas and Europe.

América Móvil expanded significantly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. It acquired 13 million new Brazilian subscribers by buying assets of the struggling local telco Oi, leaving the company with more users in Brazil than in its home country of Mexico. The company also launched a vast new5G network.

Along with these expansions, América Móvil made improvements in transparency, earning it the second-largest score increase of the 12 telco giants we rank. The company published its first transparency reports in 2021, providing new information about how it handles government demands for content restriction, network shutdowns, and user information. While not comprehensive, it was the first stand-alone transparency report published by a telco based in Latin America. The company also published a new company-wide privacy policy that included its first commitment to privacy impact assessments. The policy also promised to uphold various ethical principles in América Móvil’s use of algorithmic systems, though it did not directly reference human rights. The company remained opaque about its policies for handling user information and about its advertising policies and practices.

Meanwhile, América Móvil's major European subsidiary, A1 Telekom, has faced scrutiny over the 2020 network shutdown imposed in Belarus during mass pro-democracy protests. In its home country of Mexico, América Móvil’s subsidiary Telmex faced its first strike in 40 years, with thousands of unionized workers staging a walkout in July. Workers demanded that Telmex fill vacant positions that left them with increased workloads, and alleged that the company had routinely engaged in “coercive measures such as withholding wages, and [retirement] benefits, [and] physical and verbal attacks.” In Mexico, Telmex provides fixed-line and satellite telecommunications services alongside cell service provided by América Móvil’s other domestic subsidiary, Telcel. As of publication of this scorecard, the company and its workers have not reached an agreement.

Key takeaways

  • América Móvil was the only Latin American telecom company[1] to release a transparency report about government demands for user data, but it made this data less useful by combining numbers from multiple countries and it completely omitted demands submitted to its European subsidiaries.
  • The company was not transparent about the way it handles user information, receiving one of the lowest scores on this issue.
  • América Móvil disclosed almost nothing about its use of targeted advertising.

Key recommendations

  • Clarify security measures. América Móvil should clarify its policies for securing user information and for mitigating the harm caused by data breaches.
  • Be transparent about user information. América Móvil should clearly disclose how it collects and uses this information, including for targeted advertising and for the development of algorithmic systems.
  • Improve governance and oversight across all countries. América Móvil should be more transparent about what internal structures it has in place to secure and protect users’ human rights, including for its European subsidiaries. The company should also institute robust human rights impact assessments.

Services evaluated:

  • Telcel (Prepaid mobile)
  • Telcel (Postpaid mobile)
  • Operating company evaluated: Telcel (Mexico)For telecommunications companies, the RDR Index evaluates relevant policies of the parent company, the operating company, and selected services of that operating company.
  • Market cap: $44.7 billion (as of November 4, 2022)
  • BMV, based in Mexico City: AMXL
  • Read more about how stock structures can be a barrier to shareholder participation
  • Website: https://www.americamovil.com

The 2022 Telco Giants Scorecard covers policies that were active on June 1, 2022. Policies that came into effect after June 1, 2022, were not evaluated for this scorecard.

Scores reflect the average score across the services we evaluated, with each service weighted equally.

  • Lead researchers: Zak Rogoff, Farah Rasmi

Changes since 2020

  • América Móvil explained its process for dealing with government demands for censorship and for user information.
  • The company stated that it performs privacy impact assessments, but it failed to assess risks to freedom of expression or the human rights impacts of its own policy enforcement, targeted advertising, algorithmic systems, or zero-rating practices.
  • América Móvil said it was committed to various values—such as anti-discrimination—in its use of algorithmic systems, but stopped short of a full commitment to human rights in this area.

Scores since 2017

100%0%2017201820192020202221%21%25%22%32%
Most companies’ scores dropped between 2019 and 2020 with the inclusion of our new indicators on targeted advertising and algorithmic systems. To learn more, please visit our Methodology development archive.
Governance54%
Freedom of expression21%
Privacy30%

We rank companies on their governance, and on their policies and practices affecting freedom of expression and privacy.

Governance 54%

América Móvil made a general commitment to protect users’ freedom of expression and privacy rights (G1). It also published a new ethical statement covering its development and use of algorithmic systems (G1), but stopped short of a clear commitment to human rights in this area. The company disclosed its first ever privacy impact assessments (G4a), but neglected to assess risks to freedom of expression, or the human rights impacts of its targeted advertising, policy enforcement, algorithmic systems, and zero-rating practices (G4b–e). It continued to lack any mechanism for proactive engagement with the people whose rights are affected by its business (G5).

Freedom of expression 21%

América Móvil improved more in freedom of expression than in any other category. The company explained its process for handling external demands for content and account restrictions for the first time (F5a, F5b). This included incomplete information about how it would handle a government demand to temporarily cut off internet access in a given area (F10). It disclosed nothing about the number of demands it receives for website blocking or internet shutdowns (F6, F10). Its European subsidiary A1 is known to have carried out an internet shutdown in Belarus in 2020, but the company did not include information about A1 in its transparency report.

The company did not disclose a process for enforcing its own rules on its network (F3a) or disclose data about the volume of restrictions enforced (F4a, F4b). Neither did it disclose any advertising content or ad-targeting rules (F1c, F1d). Although it published a policy in favor of net neutrality principles, it did not maintain this commitment in practice, operating a zero-rating program for WhatsApp, Uber, and other popular services (F9).

Privacy 30%

América Móvil’s new privacy policy disclosed that users can obtain some of the information the company holds about them (P8). This was a step in the right direction, but the company remains one of the most opaque among the 12 giants we rank with regard to its use of user information (P3–P9). It also provided no information about the steps it would take to address the impact of a data breach on its customers, beyond notifying them when legally required to do so (P15).

The company improved its transparency around external demands for user information; its new transparency report included detailed descriptions of its process for handling them (P10a, P10b). But it failed to provide country-by-country numbers detailing the demands received (P11a), instead combining data from multiple countries, making it far less useful.

Footnotes

[1]Access Now’s global Transparency Reporting Index shows that, as of July 2021, no other Latin American telco had released a transparency report.