We’re loving the Olympics here at Worldline and are in awe of how well our team is doing. Since we just happen to be a telecom company, we thought, what can we do to help cheer our athletes on than letting our customers call them for FREE for the duration of the Sochi Games.

There are no tricks. Nothing special you have to do. Just call using the Sochi area code and that call will be credited on your next bill.

We invite you to with our athletes the best in their quest for Gold, Silver and Bronze in Sochi Russia – Go Canada Go!

Oh, and if you are not a Worldline Bundle customer, this is just part of the service you will come to expect once you join up. For more details on the Worldline Bundle, please go HERE.

Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He is also Canada’s premier writer on the telecommunications industry.

Last month he wrote a provocative column called Why Canada’s Telecom Companies Should Come Clean About Customer Information

Here’s a brief excerpt:

I wrote a column arguing that Canada’s telecom companies should come clean about their disclosures of customer information. That column was in response to a public letter from leading civil liberties groups and academics sent to Canada’s leading telecom companies asking them to shed new light into their data retention and sharing policies…to address the lack of transparency regarding how and when Canadians’ personal information may be disclosed without their knowledge to law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

Concerns with telecom secrecy has become particularly pronounced in recent months as a steady stream of revelations that have painted a picture of ubiquitous surveillance that captures “all the signals all the time”, sweeping up billions of phone calls, texts, emails, and Internet activity with dragnet-style efficiency.

Canada’s role in the surveillance activities remains a bit of mystery, yet there is little doubt that Canadian telecom and Internet companies play an important part as intermediaries that access, retain, and possibly disclose information about their subscribers’ activities.

Good points there, and we agree. The telecommunications industry must become more transparent.

So, we’ll go first. Here’s what we here at Worldline disclose.

I asked our CTO Francisco Dominguez to spell out in the simplest terms what we do and don’t do when it comes to our customers data and information. It turns out, we don’t do much, and when we do disclose any information it’s under very specific circumstances with very strict guidelines:

According to Francisco, for telephone numbers, if a law enforcement agency (LEA) requests information and indicates it’s an imminent threat to life  we collect the law enforcement agency contact  details (badge/name/dept/LEA name/contact number) and confirm the LEA through a call back mechanism, then we provide address details for the subscriber limited to:

 First-name Last-name, address, city, postal code, alternate phone numbers

If a law enforcement agency requests information and does not indicate an imminent threat to life we require a warrant.

Once a warrant is received we provide the details outlined in the warrant only.

So, for the record, that’s our disclosure policy. Contact information only, and only when it’s a matter of life or death, or if we are presented with a warrant. As Michael wrote, “Canadian telecom and Internet companies play an important part as intermediaries that access, retain, and possibly disclose information about their subscribers’ activities.”

Very true, and we don’t play that game.

We unveiled our new Pay It Back program a few weeks ago, in the hopes that it would make it easier for our bundle customers to get the word out about Worldline, and at the same time, give them something back in return.

We introduced it with what is called a “soft-launch”, meaning very little fan-fair except for a blog entry and some posts on social media. We wanted to ensure that all the bugs were fixed first before unveiling it to our entire customer base. (Obamacare taught us that).

It turns out, a bunch of them found out anyway because our referral numbers have jumped almost 100% in the short time since. It turns out our little tweak makes it super-simple to refer friends and family, which was the plan, and our Bundle customers are taking advantage of the deal. Here’s how it works:

Step 1

Refer your friends. Get your own personal Pay-It-Back Referral Link which you can email, or share on social channels. You can also use the simple Pay-It-Back Email Form and fill in up to ten of your friends email addresses. That’s it. Your job is done.

Step 2

Your friends and family sign up. We will give them an instant signing bonus of $25 off their first bill and they are on their way to saving even more.

Step 3

We pay you. Each referral will earn you a one-time credit of $20.00, plus $5.00/month for 12 consecutive months. That’s $80.00 in total credits for each and every successful referral.

 As soon as the new bundle customer is signed up, they can also jump in and start spreading the Worldline news. Isn’t it great when a plan comes together?

So thanks to all of our bundle customers who found out without us telling them, and to all of you who haven’t started “Paying-It-Back,” what are you waiting for?

Worldine Pay-It-Back Program