The “Intellexa Leaks”, a new investigation published jointly by Inside Story, Haaretz and WAV Research Collective, presents troubling revelations about the surveillance company Intellexa and its signature product Predator, a form of highly invasive spyware that has been linked to human rights abuses in multiple countries.
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.
Responding to the publication of a Citizen Lab report identifying Italian journalist Ciro Pellegrino and another who has chosen to remain anonymous, as the latest targets of Paragon’s spyware in Europe, Elina Castillo Jiménez, Advocacy and Policy Advisor on targeted surveillance at Amnesty International, said:
Responding to a ruling that spyware maker NSO Group must pay more than USD167 million in damages to Whatsapp, Rebecca White, Amnesty International’s researcher on targeted surveillance, said:
Novo istraživanje Amnesty International-a otkriva da su dve novinarke iz Balkanske istraživačke mreže (BIRN), nagrađivane mreže istraživačkih novinara iz Srbije, prošlog meseca bile meta špijunskog softvera Pegasus.
Two journalists from Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), an award-winning Serbian network of investigative journalists, were targeted with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware last month, a new Amnesty International investigation reveals.
You can also read a pdf version of this technical briefing.
Responding to the publication of a Citizen Lab report identifying multiple cases involving the use of Paragon’s spyware against journalists and human rights defenders in Italy, the Head of Amnesty International’s Security Lab, Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, said: