Türk Telekom

Türk Telekom demonstrates its support for users with disabilities through projects such as its Accessible Life mobile app and Günışığı (Sunlight), which offer distance education to children with visual impairments. In addition, its İnternetle Hayat Kolay (Life is Simple with Internet) initiative works to increase women’s digital knowledge and encourage their participation in digital industries.

The company has programmes to teach intermediate and technical skills to individuals. Through its programme ‘Life is Simple with the Internet for Women with a Goal’, the company supports women in developing e-commerce knowledge. With the TahtApp software, Türk Telekom offers an innovative solution to facilitate following up on in-class education for children with disabilities, who study in the same classes as their peers without disabilities.

Türk Telekom meets industry norms for cybersecurity practices by disclosing high-level responsibility for information security. It also reports on how it monitors and responds to security incidents, alongside having a standalone cybersecurity document.

Türk Telekom has an open source project with which it became the first company in the world to implement Software-Defined Broadband Access (SEBA). The company demonstrates support for the tech innovation ecosystem through a venture capital fund and support for start-ups. It also shares big data for research on social issues, demonstrates support for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and has a committee responsible for ethics. Furthermore, the company provides public data sets.

Türk Telekom has an opportunity to implement initiatives to enhance access to digital technology. The company also has an opportunity to disclose more information, such as its financial and in-kind contributions, for its initiatives on digital inclusion for women. The company should also disclose its number of employees with disabilities and the steps it has taken to provide them an inclusive workplace. Further, it should report on how the economic value it creates is distributed among its stakeholders.

The company can improve its efforts to support basic and technical digital skills development. It also has the opportunity to disclose more information about its digital skills programmes, including its contribution to these programmes and the number of participants. It can also consider carrying out a third-party assessment of its programmes for digital skills development and school connectivity.

The company has room to improve its disclosure on cybersecurity. It can make its information security certificate publicly available and disclose data breaches in line with international norms. The company also has an opportunity to make a high-level commitment to child online safety and to expand its initiatives in this area.

Türk Telekom has an opportunity to enhance support for open source projects and standards. The company can develop support for social or non-profit start-ups and start-ups founded by people from underrepresented groups. In addition, the company can demonstrate support for inclusive and ethical innovation by reporting on the ratio of women in its tech staff, the location of its research and development (R&D) facilities, and how it considers ethics in its R&D and artificial intelligence (AI) activities.

Türk Telekom commits to respecting human rights and the ILO core labour rights. It also has a publicly available policy statement that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. However, the company does not disclose a process to identify, assess and act on salient human rights risks in its own operations and in its business relationships. Furthermore, while Türk Telekom has a grievance mechanism for workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints, it is unclear if complainants have the option to remain anonymous.

Türk Telekom publicly commits to respecting worker health and safety and places health and safety expectations on its business relationships. However, while the company discloses information on the collective bargaining agreements covering its workforce, it lacks disclosure in relation to working hours and wages. For example, the company does not state if overtime is paid at a premium or disclose a target for paying its workers a living wage. In relation to workforce diversity, while Türk Telekom provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender, it does not disclose employee breakdowns for any other indicators of diversity per employee category.

Türk Telekom does not disclose any relevant information in relation to tax, such as a global tax strategy or its income tax payments for all its tax jurisdictions. In relation to lobbying and political engagement, the company states that it does not make political contributions but does not disclose its overarching approach to lobbying and political engagement in a public policy statement. Türk Telekom does, however, have a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption and includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts. Furthermore, the company has a grievance mechanism for stakeholders to raise concerns and complaints on the topic.