Responding to a Lighthouse Reports publication documenting how First Wap, a surveillance company registered in Indonesia, has allegedly been covertly selling its products to state and private actors by exploiting gaps in export control regulations, Elina Castillo Jiménez, Advocacy and Policy Advisor for the Security Lab at Amnesty International, said:
“This investigation is just the latest evidence on the failure of export controls to prevent the proliferation of dangerous surveillance technologies. It shows how companies are successfully bypassing export regulations by conducting the bulk of their cross-border operations from jurisdictions where oversight can be avoided, such as Indonesia.
“As Amnesty and other partners have repeatedly demonstrated, a murky web of suppliers, brokers and resellers are used by state and private actors to procure surveillance products. This is enabled by a lack of regulation in certain jurisdictions and a lack of oversight in others.
“Regulators must immediately investigate the allegation that a European telecommunications network was used by First Wap to spy on people around the world. If companies are able to access networks in Europe to conduct surveillance operations on the continent or abroad, it is clear that self-regulation is failing and stronger oversight is urgently needed.
Elina Castillo Jiménez, Advocacy and Policy Advisor for the Security Lab at Amnesty International
Background
Lighthouse Reports’ new investigation, conducted alongside a research consortium, is based on access to a covert archive of data and undercover interviews with top-level executives of First WAP, a surveillance company founded by European nationals but operating out of Indonesia, a country with less restrictions around the export of surveillance technologies.
The investigation claims to provide evidence of a range of surveillance operations undertaken using First Wap’s Altamides technology, which uses SS7, a set of signalling protocols and standards used in telephone networks, to determine the locations of phones. Lighthouse Reports’ investigation alleges that First Wap’s technology has been used against human rights defenders, journalists, diplomats, businesspeople and politicians around the world. First Wap said in a statement to Lighthouse Reports that it “denies any illegal activity” or “human rights violations”.
Amnesty has not contacted the companies implicated in the Lighthouse Reports publication but is calling for an investigation into the allegations raised.