The report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression (“SR on FOE”), David Kaye, regarding the use of encryption and anonymity in digital communications, is now available. The SR on FOE submitted this report to the UN Human Rights Council for consideration during its upcoming 29th session; the report is scheduled for discussion on June 17.

August 5-6 – Las Vegas

The report, authored by Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher Parsons, examines how contemporary telecommunications surveillance is governed in Canada. He concludes that serious failures in transparency and accountability indicate that corporations are failing to manage Canadians’ personal information responsibly and that government irresponsibility surrounding accountability strains its credibility and aggravates citizens’ cynicism about the political process.

Our report reveals that UC Browser poorly secures data in its English and Chinese language versions for Android.

UC Browser is the most popular mobile web browser in China and India, boasting over 500 million users. This report provides a detailed analysis of how UC Browser manages and transmits user data, particularly private data, during its operation. Our research was prompted by revelations in a document leaked by Edward Snowden on which the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was preparing a story.

This document describes key identifiers used by mobile devices, highlights some identifiers that are accessible, and often collected, by various parties and the risks associated with the widespread transmission and use of these identifiers.

UC浏览器是一种移动浏览器，它目前拥有超过5亿的注册用户，是中国和印度最受欢迎的手机浏览器。在《啰嗦的松鼠：UC浏览器的隐私与安全问题》这一报告中，公民实验室(Citizen Lab)发现中文和英文安卓版UC浏览器中存在多个隐私及安全漏洞， 并讨论了它们的重要性。

Pakistan’s English newspaper DAWN spoke to Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert regarding the privacy challenges that individual users can face, in light of the fact that our communications are increasingly mediated through the Internet.

In an internal report obtained by the Toronto Star, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) states that the spy agency cannot keep up with threats from state-sponsored hackers. Citizen Lab Postdoctoral Fellow Christopher Parsons told the Toronto Star the report, along with cases like the cyber attack of the NRC by Chinese sponsored hackers, point to the militarization of the Internet.