Email surveillance of Nokia staff leads to malfeasance suspicions

Preliminary investigation: Police believed to have been aware of monitoring of email

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Email traffic between Nokia and Oulu-based Microcell group has become the subject of a criminal investigation. Neither Nokia nor Microcell personnel are under suspicion, however. Instead, two National Bureau of Investigation (NBI, Finland's central criminal police) investigators are suspected of malfeasance.
      Finnish television station Nelonen (Channel 4) first reported the affair in their Thursday evening newscast.
      According to state prosecutor Jorma Äijälä, the ongoing inquiry aims to unravel why the NBI did not instigate a criminal investigation if its detectives were aware of Nokia going through its staff's email records.
      The email identifier records reveal who has emailed whom and at what time. Apart from the possible subject-line, that actual content of the email letters cannot be retrieved.
     
The state prosecutor Äijälä told Helsingin Sanomat on Thursday that activities of the Nokia security staff have also been looked into in recent years.
      It was soon established, however, that any possible crime committed would have fallen under the statute of limitations.
      Presumably, this was not the case with regard to the actions of the NBI investigators once they had been tipped off about the email surveillance in the late 1990s. At that time the NBI commenced discussions with Nokia security staff. Until very recent years, these meetings, among other things, focused on problems relating to Nokia's competitor, the Microcell group.
      Two NBI investigators are now suspected of negligent malfeasance, on the grounds that they did not look into the activities of the Nokia staff, and failed to file a report of an offence.
      In the coming days, the involvement of the police will be handed over to the Vantaa prosecutor Jukka Haavisto for further examination.
     
The incident dates back to the late 1990s, when several Nokia employees switched over to the Microcell camp.
      Nokia feared that with the workers some business secrets might also be leaking out to their competitor.
      According to the Channel 4 news, Nokia also tried in vain to prompt a criminal investigation against Microcell several times.
     
Nokia emphasised yesterday that the surveillance had merely been a matter of monitoring the quantity of email traffic. According to Nokia, neither the content of email messages nor even the identifier records were looked into.
      In May 2003, Nokia terminated all email traffic between Nokia and Microcell. Nokia says this was done because there were no business activities between the two firms.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Flextronics to acquire Oulu-based Microcell (15.8.2003)

Links:
  Nokia
  National Bureau of Investigation

Helsingin Sanomat