Orange SA
Headquartered in France, Orange provides mobile, landline, broadband, mobile financial services, and B2B services. With 253 million customers in 26 countries across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Orange is one of the largest mobile telecommunications companies in the world.
Orange once again ranked as the worst-performing European telco. It failed to make any notable progress in keeping users informed about the policies and practices affecting their human rights. Outside of Europe, the company operates mainly in countries in both Africa and the Middle East where governments routinely resort to shutdowns and censorship. This includes the Republic of Congo, where an internet blackout coincided with the presidential election in March 2021, lasting for three days. In both 2021 and 2022, internet access was disrupted on more than one occasion in Burkina Faso amid political unrest, including on Orange’s networks. The company did take steps to improve its policy for handling government demands for network shutdown by disclosing a non-exhaustive list of reasons for which it may restrict access to networks and specific services. But this policy still lacked transparency, and Orange failed to commit to push back against these kinds of demands.
In Belgium, Orange is seeking to acquire VOO and Brutélé, both providers of fixed and mobile telecommunication services. The potential acquisition has prompted the European Commission to open an in-depth investigation to ensure it complies with the EU Merger Regulation. We could not verify whether the company conducted a human rights impact assessment of this proposed acquisition. In its 2021 Vigilance Plan, the company failed to clearly state that it conducts due diligence on acquisitions.
Last year, Orange announced the creation of a Data and AI Ethics Council “to support the company’s implementation of ethical principles governing the use of data and Artificial Intelligence technologies.’’ Despite stating that it adheres to such principles, Orange fell short of articulating an explicit policy commitment to human rights in the development and use of algorithmic systems.
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.
We rank companies on their governance, and on their policies and practices affecting freedom of expression and privacy.
While Orange was the only company with an overall decline in the governance category, it still received the third-highest score in this category. It provided less information on due diligence and it was no longer clear about whether it conducts additional evaluations when its assessments identify human rights risks (G4a). It shared an explicit commitment to freedom of expression and privacy as well as strong governance management oversight of human rights issues (G2). It also disclosed training and whistleblower programs (G3) to help ensure the implementation of its human rights commitments. The company provided strong evidence of conducting robust human rights impact assessment in relation to government regulations, existing products and services, and new activities, though it was less exhaustive with regard to the latter (G4a). But it disclosed nothing about conducting similar assessments of its own policy enforcement, or of its targeted advertising, algorithmic systems, or zero-rating programs (G4b, G4c, G4d, G4e).
Orange was among the least transparent companies in this category, sharing very little evidence of commitments to respect the right to freedom of expression and information. While it shared the types of content and activities it does not permit (F3a), it said nothing about its ad-content and ad-targeting rules (F3b, F3c). It disclosed information about how it handles government censorship demands, but it was unclear about whether this process applied to both non-judicial government demands and court orders (F5a). It did not publish any data about the nature or number of these demands (F6).
Orange performed worse in this category than all its European peers, as well as AT&T and MTN. Its progress declined after it stopped providing information about what user information its customers can obtain (P8). Though it disclosed which user information it collects, it failed to specify how (P3a). It did not clarify what user information it infers (P3b) and shares, or for which purposes. It lacked transparency about its process for responding to government surveillance demands (P10a), failing to disclose how it responds to court orders.