IFT converts sanction against AT&T of 432 million pesos into one of 4 million

AT&T You will have to pay a penalty of almost 4 million pesos for failing to comply with your obligations to collaborate with the security and justice authorities. A legal interpretation of the regulatory agency converted a penalty that could have been 432 million pesos into a 99% lower one.

According to the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), AT&T failed to comply with its obligations to intercept the private communications of its customers and delayed the response to 9 of the 26,082 requests from authorities it received between 2017 and 2018.

The sanction provided for by law is explicit: “Failure to comply with the obligations related to collaboration with justice” can represent a sanction of between 1.1% and 4% of the income of the defaulting company (article 298, subsection C, section V ).

But the plenary decided to sanction AT&T with the sanction provided for another conduct, one related to the administrative exercise and not to collaboration in matters of security and justice: “Extemporaneously present notices, reports, documents or information” (article 298, subsection A, section I).

Thus, a penalty of 431 million 812,480 pesos, equivalent to 1.1% of the cumulative income of AT&T In the fiscal year of 2017, it became a sanction of 3 million 925,568 pesos, equivalent to 0.01%, according to the resolution that this reporter was able to read and that the IFT will make public after December 10.

AT&T invoice in Mexico every minute three times the final sanction of the IFT.

Collaboration with justice

The Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law (LFTR) obliges all telecommunications companies to collaborate with the safekeeping and immediate delivery of information from their customers’ communications (data, metadata and geographic location of the devices connected to their networks). The spirit of the law considers that the delivery of this information may be crucial to protect the lives of people in the event of kidnappings, for example.

The IFT is responsible for monitoring the collaboration of dealers.

The resolution against AT&T it was reached on November 16, with file number P/IFT/161122/637. The details discussed by the plenary commissioners will be known on December 10, when the stenographic version of the session is made public. Voted in favor: Ramiro Camacho Castillo, Javier Juárez Mojica, Arturo Robles Rovalo and Sóstenes Díaz González.

legal interpretation

The commissioners of the plenary IFT they were based “on a pro-person and progressive interpretation” of the Federal Telecommunications and Radio Broadcasting Law (LFTR) and on different legal criteria of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation.

In particular, the plenary session was inspired by a decision of the Court on the unconstitutionality of article 298, paragraph B, section IV, which imposed sanctions of 1% to 3% of the income of telecommunications companies for various breaches, none explicitly related to security and justice: “Other violations of this Law, the Regulations, the administrative provisions, fundamental technical plans and other provisions issued by the Institute; as well as concessions or authorizations that are not expressly contemplated in this chapter”.

The Court considered at the time that the sanction of subparagraph B “was excessive.”

And with that criterion of excessiveness the matter was resolved against AT&T up to a minimum percentage: 0.01% or almost 4 million pesos. AT&T can challenge the resolution before judicial instances.