INDEX / DIRECTORY / BT GROUP

BT Group

Telecommunications 119 CITED SOURCES UPDATED 2026-09-23 METHOD V6.5
BDS-1000 Score 528 /1000 C Tier C - High
Military ↗ 0.00 Digital ↗ 0.00 Economic ↗ 6.04 Political ↗ 4.52
OWNERSHIP TREE 5 brands and group businesses View all

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Key Findings

  • Economic: BT maintained B.T. Communication Israel Ltd as a 100%-owned subsidiary in Ramat Gan in FY2025 and FY2026, although public disclosures do not resolve whether it was trading or dormant.1
  • Political: BT historically worked with Bezeq International as a channel/BT Alliance partner; no public source reviewed establishes that the BT-specific relationship continued after the relevant 2024 notice dates or that BT services supported Bezeq settlement or security-force activity.2, 3
  • Ownership: BT’s 12.06% shareholder group Deutsche Telekom has documented Israeli technology investments and post-2024 stated interest in Israeli defence-sector high technology; these are shareholder-group acts, not BT Group acts.4, 5
  • Not found: No public evidence identified of BT contracts with Israeli military, security, intelligence, settlement, or Project Nimbus bodies, nor of BT-operated Israeli data centres, R&D centres, or military installations.6, 7

Target Profile

FieldDetail
Company NameBT Group plc
JurisdictionEngland and Wales.8
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom.8
SectorTelecommunications, connectivity and digital services.9
OwnershipPublic limited company. At 31 March 2026, Bharti Televentures UK Limited held 24.95% of voting rights and T-Mobile Holdings Limited held 12.06%.10
Key Executives / GovernanceAdam Crozier (Chairman); Allison Kirkby (Chief Executive); Sunil Bharti Mittal and Gopal Vittal (Bharti-nominated non-independent non-executive directors).11
Israeli-Nexus SummaryBT retains a wholly owned Israeli legal entity and has documented historical/commercial links with Bezeq International, but the reviewed evidence does not establish a BT supply path to Bezeq’s settlement or Israeli state-security services.1, 2, 3

Key Facts:

Executive Summary

BT Group is a UK-headquartered telecommunications and digital-connectivity company with a documented Israeli corporate presence: B.T. Communication Israel Ltd remained a 100%-owned group undertaking in BT’s FY2025 and FY2026 disclosures. Those disclosures establish legal ownership and an Israeli address, but do not publicly establish the subsidiary’s revenue, employee count, active trading status, service portfolio, tax payments, or whether it is dormant.1

The principal documented commercial nexus is BT’s historical and later-retrieved relationship with Bezeq International. BT stated in 2011 that Bezeq International was a BT Alliance partner helping BT Global Services serve multinational companies in Israel; a 2017 Bezeq filing described an exclusive partnership involving global data networks, MPLS and international access lines. A 2023 BT International post confirms a channel partnership, while a current Bezeq International recruitment posting identifies BT among foreign network-operator counterparts supporting dedicated international customer links.2, 13, 14 The public record reviewed does not establish present contractual terms, exclusivity, particular routes, or a customer-level bridge between BT carriage and Bezeq International’s documented services to COGAT, the Civil Administration, DCL/DCO Gaza, or settlement-related operations.3, 14

Economic and political scoring also reflects the continuing Israeli subsidiary and documented conduct by a current greater-than-10% shareholder group. Deutsche Telekom, associated with BT shareholder T-Mobile Holdings Limited, has held Israeli technology investments including Teridion and, in November 2025, its CEO described an intention to support Israeli defence-sector high technology through a fund. These acts are material contextual evidence concerning a shareholder group; they are not attributed as BT operations, contracts, donations, or Israeli military support.4, 5, 10

No public evidence identified in the reviewed sources of a direct BT contract, tender, framework, or memorandum with the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Israeli intelligence agencies, Israel Prison Service, Border Police, or Project Nimbus. Nor was public evidence identified of BT supplying Israeli forces with purpose-built military systems, offensive cyber tools, target-generation software, physical settlement infrastructure, or an Israeli data centre/R&D operation.6, 7 On the fixed V6.5 evidence-only assessment, BT receives BRS 528, Tier C (Substantial Complicity), driven by the human-vetted economic and political domain assessments rather than military or digital involvement.

Timeline of Relevant Events

DateEvent
22 May 2008A report described an Israeli Innovation event at BT Tower involving BT, the Israeli embassy’s commercial department and the Israeli Foreign Trade Administration; no current equivalent programme was identified in reviewed materials.15
22 March 2011BT stated that Bezeq International was one of more than 100 BT Alliance partners and declined calls to sever the relationship.2
13 September 2017BT hosted and sponsored an Israel innovation cyber event at BT Tower; continuity of that sponsorship is not established.16
2023BT International published a post describing a channel partnership with Bezeq International Tech.13
19 July 2024The ICJ issued its advisory opinion on legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory.17
21 November 2024The ICC announced arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.18
3 December 2024Norges Bank excluded Bezeq following the Council on Ethics’ finding concerning Bezeq telecommunications services in West Bank settlements; the finding concerns Bezeq, not BT.19
15 September 2025BT announced a relationship agreement and the appointment of Sunil Bharti Mittal and Gopal Vittal as Bharti representatives on its board.11
14 November 2025Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges wrote of an intention to support Israeli defence-sector high technology through a Deutsche Telekom fund; this is shareholder-group conduct, not BT conduct.5
29 June 2026BT and Verizon announced a proposed 50:50 joint venture for their international enterprise-connectivity businesses, expected to complete in 2027 subject to approvals.12

Corporate Overview

BT Group plc is an England-and-Wales public limited company, incorporated on 30 March 2001, with a London registered office. Its current group description identifies Consumer, Business, International and Openreach as customer-facing businesses, supported by Digital and Networks.8, 9

BT’s FY2025 and FY2026 related-undertaking disclosures list B.T. Communication Israel Ltd at a Ramat Gan address as a 100%-owned ordinary-share group undertaking. The same entity appears in BT’s privacy-controller list. This establishes a continuing Israeli legal entity, but the public evidence reviewed does not establish active trading, a current Israeli service offering, a factory, a logistics hub, an Israeli data centre, or an Israeli R&D facility.1

BT’s relationship with Bezeq International must be kept distinct from Bezeq Group activities. Historic BT and Bezeq materials describe a channel/Alliance relationship for multinational connectivity and network services. Bezeq itself has documented settlement and Israeli state-security telecommunications activity, including services identified by external sources for COGAT and the Civil Administration. The reviewed evidence does not identify BT as the carrier, provider, or supplier for any such service.2, 3, 20

BT International was still a BT unit at the audit cut-off. The proposed Verizon joint venture had not completed, and public transaction materials did not specify whether B.T. Communication Israel Ltd would be contributed to it.12

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified of a BT direct contract, tender award, framework agreement, memorandum, export licence, or military product sale involving the Israeli Ministry of Defence, IDF, Israel Prison Service, Border Police, Israeli intelligence bodies, or Israeli defence primes.6, 21

BT has military-sector capability outside Israel. Its Smart Bases offering markets connectivity, secure Wi-Fi/5G, surveillance, access controls, biometrics, counter-drone capability and facilities-management services for military bases; UK procurement records also list British Telecommunications Limited on defence-related frameworks. These sources establish capability and UK procurement eligibility, not Israeli supply.22, 23

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest defence is that the record establishes no Israeli military end user. BT’s documented Bezeq relationship concerns commercial network services; neither the historic alliance material nor the 2023 channel reference identifies an Israeli military customer, a tactical product, military specification, or security-force route.2, 13

Bezeq Group reports services to Israeli security forces, but this does not establish a BT-to-security-force supply chain. The evidence records both Bezeq activity and a BT–Bezeq commercial relationship while leaving the necessary customer, routing, and end-use link unproven.3, 20

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

BT has commercial relationships with Israeli-incorporated or Israel-linked technology suppliers, including CyberArk, Check Point, NiCE and AudioCodes, as well as Verint’s Israel-based R&D footprint. Verified examples include a 2023 CyberArk identity-security managed service, BT’s Verint-powered contact-centre service, and an Openreach deployment of NiCE Cognigy AI agents.25, 26, 27

BT is also identified by a Bezeq International recruitment posting as one of several foreign operators used in support of dedicated international customer links. This establishes a foreign-operator counterpart relationship, not exclusive carriage, a particular Israeli endpoint, or the routing of any state, security, or settlement customer traffic through BT.14

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The verified digital relationships concern commercial cybersecurity, communications, customer-experience and workforce/contact-centre technologies. No public evidence identified of BT deploying Israeli-origin facial recognition, predictive policing, biometric identification, offensive cyber tools, autonomous targeting, fire-control, kill-chain software, or AI systems to Israeli state or security bodies.7, 25, 26

No public evidence identified that BT operated, leased, or colocated an Israeli data centre; BT’s global colocation materials do not identify an Israeli site. Nor is BT named as a Project Nimbus provider or participant in the official Israeli government description, which identifies AWS and Google as selected public-cloud providers.7, 28, 29

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

BT’s direct documented economic nexus is its continuing ownership of B.T. Communication Israel Ltd. BT financial statements list the entity as 100% owned in both FY2025 and FY2026. Public disclosures do not establish its operational status, Israel-specific revenue, staffing, tax, or profits.1

BT’s historical commercial relationship with Bezeq International is a service-distribution/channel relationship, not physical-goods sourcing. No public evidence identified of BT procuring Israeli agricultural products, selling settlement-origin consumer goods, operating an importer-of-record vehicle for such goods, or holding Israeli sovereign debt or Israel-focused portfolio investments.2, 31

A separate ownership-context vector concerns Deutsche Telekom: a shareholder group associated with BT’s 12.06% T-Mobile Holdings stake. Deutsche Telekom disclosed a strategic investment in Israel-based Teridion, including an additional $25 million equity investment in 2022; the latest directly retrievable statutory ownership figure in the audit source set was a 32.34% indirect holding at 31 December 2024. This is not a BT investment or proof that BT uses Teridion technology.4, 32

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

BT is not documented as Israeli-founded, Israel-headquartered, Israeli-tax-resident, Israeli-state-owned, or controlled by Israeli capital. Its Israeli subsidiary’s operational character remains unresolved rather than presumed active.1, 8

The current OHCHR settlement-business database identifies Bezeq, not BT Group or B.T. Communication Israel Ltd. Bezeq’s settlement and state-service activities therefore cannot be transposed to BT absent evidence of BT participation in those specific activities.20, 33

Named Entities and Evidence Map

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

BT’s post-2023 corporate record reviewed for this audit establishes continuing ownership of its Israeli subsidiary and a limited FY2024 colleague-wellbeing reference to Jewish and Muslim networks coping with the impact of the situation in Israel and Gaza. It does not state a position on hostilities, settlements, Palestinian civilian harm, the ICJ advisory opinion, or ICC warrants.1, 35

The political-context evidence principally concerns BT’s shareholder structure. Deutsche Telekom is the controlling person with significant control of T-Mobile Holdings Limited, which held 12.06% of BT voting rights. Deutsche Telekom made Israel-specific free calling and roaming available in October 2023 and its CEO later wrote about supporting Israeli defence-sector high technology. These are shareholder-group actions and statements, not BT Group policy or resource deployment.5, 10, 36

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

No public evidence identified of BT lobbying for or against BDS legislation, making Israel/Palestine-specific political contributions, donating to the IDF, FIDF, JNF/KKL, Israeli reservist funds, settlement organisations, or military-welfare bodies. BT’s FY2026 governance report states that group policy prohibits cash or in-kind political-party contributions, while recording £9,315 in UK political-conference event attendance under the wider statutory definition.10, 37

No comparable BT customer-connectivity relief programme for Israel, Gaza, or the Palestinian territories was identified in the reviewed BT materials. This absence should not be read as proof of a broader corporate position: BT’s documented Israel/Gaza wording concerns employee wellbeing, and the separate October 2023 Israel tariff relief was provided by Telekom Deutschland, not BT.35, 36

Named Entities and Evidence Map

BDS-1000 Score

Method: V6.5.

DomainIMPV-Domain Score
Military0.000.000.000.00
Digital0.000.000.000.00
Economic6.506.509.006.04
Political6.205.109.004.52

V_MAX is driven by Economic: Deutsche Telekom’s documented strategic investment in Israel-based Teridion, attributed under V6.5’s explicit 10%+ shareholder-group controlling-principal rule. Its 32.34% indirect holding is directly verified at 31 December 2024, not as an unchanged September 2026 percentage. BT’s wholly owned Israeli legal entity is a separate, lower-scoring scenario because its trading activity and scale remain unverified. Political is governed by Deutsche Telekom’s CEO’s public proposal to support Israeli defence-sector technology, not an executed fund or BT-authored commitment. These are shareholder-group acts, not acts directed by BT; no unverified Bezeq downstream use is scored as BT conduct.

Methodology Note

Footnotes

  1. https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/annual-reports/2026/2026-bt-group-financial-statements.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11

  2. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/bt-response-regarding-allegations-of-complicity-with-israels-breaches-of-international-law-and-human-rights/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  3. https://bcommunications.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/BCOM-2024-Annual-Financial-Statements-ENG-version.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  4. https://www.telekom.com/en/newsroom/latest-updates/media-information/2022/11/telekom-invests-in-israeli-software-company-teridion ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. https://de.linkedin.com/pulse/wir-von-israels-innovationskultur-lernen-k%C3%B6nnen-tim-h%C3%B6ttges-gtege ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/annual-reports/2025/2025-bt-group-plc-financial-statements.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  7. https://business.bt.com/networks-digital-services/cloud-infrastructure-solutions/data-centre-colocation/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/04190816 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. https://www.bt.com/about/bt/our-company/group-businesses ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/annual-reports/2026/2026-bt-group-corporate-governance.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  11. https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-plc-director-appointments-and-relationship-agreement/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. https://newsroom.bt.com/bt-group-and-verizon-to-form-joint-venture-creating-a-scaled-international-connectivity-platform-for-multinational-customers/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  13. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bt-global-services_why-bezeq-international-tech-value-a-channel-activity-7059804580141785089-BxHe ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  14. https://il.linkedin.com/jobs/view/data-network-engineer-12183-at-bezeq-international-4314753771 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  15. https://www.thejc.com/news/bt-calls-israeli-firms-to-its-tower-fec6u26q ↩

  16. https://web.archive.org/web/20250515203750id_/http://connect2.globalservices.bt.com/israelinnovationcyber ↩

  17. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/19/israels-settlement-policies-break-international-law-court-finds ↩

  18. https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges ↩

  19. https://etikkradet.no/bezeq-the-israeli-telecommunication-corp-ltd-2/ ↩

  20. https://www.whoprofits.org/companies/company/3705 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  21. https://www.paxforpeace.nl/publications/the-companies-arming-israel-and-their-financiers/ ↩

  22. https://business.bt.com/public-sector/defence/smart-bases/ ↩

  23. https://www.gca.gov.uk/suppliers/329/bt-plc ↩

  24. https://www.bt.com/about/bt/our-board/ruth-cairnie ↩

  25. https://www.cyberark.com/ko/press/bt-customers-to-benefit-from-new-global-identity-security-managed-service-powered-by-cyberark/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  26. https://www.verint.com/fr/press-room/2025-press-releases/bt-group-elevates-cx-grows-revenue-with-verint/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  27. https://www.nice.com/press-releases/openreach-uses-nice-cognigy-ai-agents-to-upgrade-u-k-broadband-deployment-to-deliver-tens-of-millions-in-financial-benefits-for-openreach ↩ ↩2

  28. https://www.bt.com/about/bt/research-and-development ↩

  29. https://www.mr.gov.il/ilgstorefront/en/news/details/111222 ↩ ↩2

  30. https://www.audiocodes.com/partners/locators/channel-partner-locator/global ↩

  31. https://www.bt.com/content/dam/bt-plc/assets/documents/digital-impact-and-sustainability/championing-human-rights/fighting-modern-slavery/modern-slavery-statement-2026.pdf ↩

  32. https://delivery-p167603-e1796511.adobeaemcloud.com/adobe/assets/urn%3Aaaid%3Aaem%3A332473ed-93ce-4023-9558-5ece05aca1d8/original/as/DL_02-Anteilsbesitzlisten-285-2024.data.pdf?attachment=true ↩ ↩2

  33. https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?l=en&s=A%2FHRC%2F60%2F19&t=pdf ↩ ↩2

  34. https://www.bharti.com/our-company-strategic.html ↩ ↩2

  35. https://www.bt.com/about/annual-reports/2024summary/assets/pdf/bt_annualreport_2024.pdf ↩ ↩2

  36. https://report.telekom.com/annual-report-2023/management-report/combined-non-financial-statement/aspect-3-social-concerns.html ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  37. https://www.bt.com/about/bt/policy-and-regulation ↩ ↩2