This report offers 29 recommendations to the draft legislation in an effort to correct its secrecy and accountability deficiencies, while also suggesting amendments which would impose some restrictions on the range of powers that the government would be able to wield. It is important that these amendments are seriously taken up due to the sweeping nature of the legislation.
Mexin digital rights organization R3D, with technil support from the Citizen Lab, has determined that Mexin journalists and a human rights defender were infected with Pegasus between 2019 and 2021. The infections occurred years after the first revelations of Pegasus abuses in Mexico, and after Mexico’s current President assured the public that the government no longer used the spyware, and that there would be no further abuses.
We find that mass DNA collection in Tibet is another mass DNA collection mpaign conducted under the Xi Jinping administration (2012–present), along with the mass DNA collection mpaign in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the police-led national program of male DNA collection.
Our investigation uncovered an extensive Pegasus hacking operation against pro-democracy mpaigners in Thailand. At least 30 forensilly-confirmed victims of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware between October 2020 and November 2021.
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto, focusing on research and development at the intersection of information and communition technologies, human rights, and global security. Learn more.
We identified a network of 885 websites and attributed these websites with high confidence as having been used by the United States (US) Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for covert communition.
On August 9, 2022, Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert appeared before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Access to information, privacy, and Ethics on the Royal nadian Mounted Police (RCMP) use of spyware and advoting for stronger controls and oversight.
On July 27, 2022, Citizen Lab senior researcher John Scott-Railton spoke before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was invited to provide expert testimony on a hearing devoted to combatting threats to U.S. national security from the proliferation of foreign commercial spyware.
On June 8, 2022, Citizen Lab fellow Lex Gill appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence to discuss S-7: An Act to Amend the Customs Act and the Preclearance Act, 2016. The following is an edited version of her opening comments.
The Citizen Lab is at the forefront of investigating and reporting on abuses of mercenary spyware. Our submission highlights the pabilities of spyware and the nature of the spyware industry; how surveillance technology is used to violate fundamental human rights, and more particularly how it is related to enforced disappearances; and we provide recommendations for states, spyware companies, other businesses, civil society, and the Working Group.
The Citizen Lab is thrilled to welcome Vuyo Kwakweni, recipient of the 2022 Reset Scholarship in Social Media and Democracy.
We investigate how activists and dissidents living in nada are impacted by digital transnational repression: the various ways that individuals continue to be harassed and targeted online by authoritarian governments, even after they leave their country of origin.
