Digital Rights - Telecom Italia, one of the major electronic communications providers in Italy is in the middle of a huge scandal regarding the illegal wiretapping and surveillance of the telephone networks.

The journalists from the weekly L'Espresso have proven that an entire system called Radar was capable of recording sensitive information about millionsof Italians. The system was discovered by the internal audit, but also by the Milan Prosecutors that have opened an investigation against Marco Mancini, the deputy director and director of the first "foreign" or counter-intelligence division SISMI (Military Intelligence and Security Service) and his friends Giuliano Tavaroli former director of security in Telecom Italia and Emanuele Cipriani, owner of the private investigation company Polis d'Istinto.

Tavaroli, who occupied the key national position to which were passed all authorized requests by magistrates to make wiretaps, has recently resigned and is under investigation by the Milan Prosecutors for association in violating privacy. In the computers of another central figure of the scandal, Cipriani, the magistrates have found a huge archive of files regarding magistrates, political persons, football players and referees - all the major figures in the recent scandals in Italy. Apparently, wiretaps that could have been used to blackmail them were also found during the investigation.

According to Telecom Italia's own investigation, their procedure and machines used for the legal wiretaps had a number of flaws and it was technically possible to spy on the telephone conversations, without leaving any trace. Moreover the interceptions were analysed with two special software programs: Enterprise Miner and Analyst's Notebook.

An investigation was started also by the Italian Data Protection Commission (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali) to check if the personal data protection requirements have been observed.

The situation has become much more complicated after the recent death of Adamo Bove, an investigation cop and a leading expert on electronic surveillance who apparently committed suicide by jumping from the highway. Bove had been hired by TIM to manage their Radar software system and had discovered a flaw in the system allowing people to enter the Telecom system without a trace. He announced the fact to the Milan magistrates, that has lead to the above-mentioned top-secret investigation.

The telecom wiretapping scandal has shown that private companies and reporters in connection with SISMI were able to access information regarding Italian citizens, using the system in place for legal wiretapping.

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