The government insisted this morning that figures given by Vodafone about formal requests by law enforcement agencies did not mean that these were legal interceptions.

The Vodafone Group in its annual report entitled Law Enforcement Disclosure Report 2015, gives an account of formal demands made by law enforcement agencies to the telecommunications company as part of ongoing investigations. The report shows there were 3,339 last year compared to 3,773 in the previous year.

"The statistics issued by Vodafone Group are not legal interceptions by the Malta Security Service, which and are strictly governed by relevant laws under the Malta Security Service Act, which is in turn scrutinised by the Security Committee," the government said.

"The vast majority of the requests to the telecommunications company are initiated by the Police at the request of victims of crimes for issues such as phone thefts, loss of phone, anonymous calls and similar issues. Other requests by the Police to the telecommunications company would be in relation to criminal investigations and search for missing persons," the government said.

The Law Enforcement Disclosure Report 2015 can be found on: http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about/sustainability/law_enforcement/country_by_country.html