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Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) is a national mobile network operator that has implemented Geedge systems at its data centres in Yangon, Naypyidaw and Mandalay. Leaked documents suggest that MPT was the first company in Myanmar to implement Geedge systems and when Geedge technicians visited Myanmar in 2022 for an environmental survey and training, they engaged with MPT. MPT is a joint operation between the junta-controlled Ministry of Transport and Communications and Japanese multinational companies Sumitomo Corporation and KDDI Corporation through their joint venture KDDI Summit Global Myanmar Co., Ltd. (KSGM). This gives the Japanese companies responsibility for the human rights violations directly linked to MPT's surveillance and censorship collaboration with the junta. Under pressure, on 28 April 2025, Sumitomo Corporation32 and KDDI33 announced that KSGM had agreed to "amend its agreement with MPT" with a view to limit the scope of KSGM's support of MPT's telecommunications operations in Myanmar, although it remains invested in the telecoms operator. This follows a prior, September 2021, statement by KDDI34 and Sumitomo Corporation35 expressing "deep concern about lawful interception in Myanmar" and statements that they had not been "subject to direct instructions from the regulatory authority with regard to interception". As has previously been disclosed by Justice For Myanmar, MPT has also worked with Israeli surveillance-for-hire corporation Cognyte Software Limited in 2020 for the instalment of an interception gateway that would allow the Myanmar military to tap calls in real time.36 Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited (Mytel) Another of the four nationwide mobile network operators is Mytel, trading under the company Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited, which has implemented Geedge systems in its Yangon and Mandalay data centres. Mytel is a key pillar in the Myanmar military's business network, providing it with revenue, technology and surveillance capabilities. Mytel's shareholders are the military conglomerate Myanmar Economic Corporation, Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defence-owned Viettel Global Investment, and Myanmar National Telecom Holdings, which is an investment vehicle for Myanmar cronies. 18

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Silk Road of Surveillance: The role of China's Geedge Networks and Myanmar telecommunications operators in the junta's digital terror campaign

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Burmese
English

Topic

Digital Rights
Digital Surveillance
Internet Restrictions
Military Coup

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Justice for Myanmar

Date Published: Sep 9, 2025

Abstract: A new leaked dataset reveals the Chinese company Geedge Networks’ business in Myanmar and exposes a significant number of telecommunications companies that are implementing sophisticated surveillance and censorship technology on behalf of the illegal Myanmar military junta. The leaked dataset offers detailed insights into the inner workings of Chinese internet surveillance and censorship technology that is exported to Myanmar by a company that frames its work as associated with China's Belt and Road Initiative. The dataset has been reviewed by a coalition of media and non-governmental/civil society organisations through the Great Firewall Export project made up of Amnesty International, InterSecLab, the Globe and Mail, Paper Trail Media, Tor Project, DER STANDARD, and Follow The Money. The Internet in Myanmar since the military’s February 2021 illegal coup attempt is among the most restricted in the world. The rolling out of a commercialised version of China’s Great Firewall gives the junta unprecedented access to and control over the online activities of 33.4 million internet users in Myanmar. Notably, the hardware, software and support provided by Geedge Networks to the Myanmar military junta enables the tracking of network traffic at the individual level and can identify the geographic location of mobile subscribers in real time by linking their activity to specific cell identifiers (cell IDs). As such, the junta has an enhanced capability to effectively track down, arrest, torture and kill human rights defenders, journalists and revolutionary forces across the country. The military junta can do so with the direct assistance of telecommunications companies in Myanmar exposed in the dataset – including ATOM (formerly Telenor Myanmar), Mytel, Myanma Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), Ooredoo Myanmar, Frontiir, StreamNet , Golden TMH Telecom, Internet Maekhong Network (IM-Net), Myanmar Broadband Telecom (MBT), Myanmar Telecommunication Network (MTN), Campana, Global Technology Group and China Unicom – that are integral to the set-up of a national firewall for the Myanmar junta. This investigation into the business dealings of Geedge Networks with the Myanmar junta builds on a June 2024 report by Justice For Myanmar into how Geedge was initiating country-wide internet surveillance and censorship through the junta-controlled Information Technology and Cyber Security Department (ITCSD) of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC). 1 By providing hardware and software to the illegal Myanmar military junta, Geedge may be aiding and abetting in the commission of crimes against humanity, including the acts of torture and killing, carried out by members of the junta within a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population. Further investigation is required on this. In the meantime, Geedge Networks is limiting the rights to freedom of expression, association, and digital movement of the people of Myanmar. For that reason, Geedge Networks should be targeted with international sanctions, and individuals in directive and leadership positions within the company should be investigated for aiding and abetting violations of international human rights laws and potentially also international crimes. Telecommunications companies identified in the Geedge dataset as supporting the junta’s online surveillance machinery should be held to account for the serious risks of online and offline violence, and de facto harms such as arrests, torture and killings, of Myanmar civilians. Geedge Networks is closely affiliated with the Chinese state and export of its systems to Myanmar align with the Belt and Road Initiative. China’s involvement in the mass surveillance and repression of the civilian population in Myanmar is part of a broader pattern in which the Chinese government remains a principal supplier of arms to the Myanmar junta, aiding and abetting the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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Myanmar Internet Project

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Silk Road of Surveillance: The role of China's Geedge Networks and Myanmar telecommunications operators in the junta's digital terror campaign

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