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:
Our September report “Shadows of Control” revealed that Pakistan is running a huge unlawful surveillance and censorship system. Built with foreign tech and carried out without warrants and safeguards, this is enabling human rights abuses on a massive scale. The report underscores the urgent need for stronger safeguards, greater transparency, and robust accountability mechanisms, all grounded in a human-rights based approach, to prevent the further erosion of digital and human rights in Pakistan and beyond.
On 6 August, the Pakistani authorities announced they were shutting down mobile internet services in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province.
Journalists in Pakistan are routinely subject to harassment, arrests and even enforced disappearances. In this backdrop, journalists are also reporting experiencing a high level of surveillance, both online and offline.
Pakistan’s unlawful mass surveillance and censorship expansion is powered by a nexus of companies based in Germany, France, United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, Canada, and the United States, Amnesty International said today in a new report “Shadows of Control”. The year-long investigation was carried out in collaboration with Paper Trail Media, DER STANDARD, Follow the Money, The Globe and Mail, Justice For Myanmar, InterSecLab and the Tor Project.
In response to the Bangkok Civil Court’s dismissal of Thai activist, Jatupat Boonpattararaksa’s lawsuit against NSO Group Technologies Ltd for allegedly failing to prevent him from being targeted with spyware, Amnesty International’s Thailand Researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said:
Amnesty International has filed an amicus curiae brief to the Bangkok Civil Court on the applicable international and regional human rights law and standards on the right to privacy, the right to an effective remedy, and human rights due diligence, in relation to the case Jatupat Boonpattararaksa vs. NSO Group Technologies Ltd.
Women and LGBTI activists in Thailand are being subjected to an online onslaught of abusive speech laced with misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic language, sexualized content and other forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TfGBV), Amnesty International said in a new report released today.
Click here for a PDF version of this briefing.
An expansive range of highly invasive spyware and surveillance products are being imported and deployed in Indonesia, Amnesty International’s Security Lab said today as it released a new briefing in collaboration with media partners – Haaretz, Inside Story, Tempo, WAV research collective and Woz.
Amnesty International, in partnership with The Washington Post, has unearthed shocking new details about the continued use of NSO Group’s highly invasive spyware Pegasus to target prominent journalists in India, including one who had previously been a victim of an attack using the same spyware.
This forensic appendix outlines forensic evidence on the use of highly invasive spyware against two journalists from India. Our investigation confirms that the devices of both individuals were targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware between August and October 2023. More information about the context for these attacks is available in an accompanying press release.