Citizen Lab research associate Christopher Parsons, in conversation with CBC Radio Spark, comments on the security concerns associated with Huawei technology should it be used in Canada’s 5G infrastructure.

The submission reviews Citizen Lab research on the use of private surveillance technology against human rights actors, describes some of the common practices of concern among private companies in the surveillance industry, and proposes a set of recommendations for the path forward.

Held July 31 – August 2 in Toronto, the Citizen Lab Summer Institute (CLSI) workshop is a meeting place for researchers and practitioners from academia, civil society, and the private sector who are working on Internet openness, security, and rights.

The Information Controls Fellowship Program (ICFP) from the Open Technology Fund (OTF) supports research into how governments in countries, regions, or areas of OTF’s core focus are restricting the free flow of information, cutting access to the open Internet, and implementing censorship mechanisms, thereby threatening the ability of global citizens to exercise basic human rights and democracy; work focused on mitigation of such threats is also supported.

We are writing to ask you to ensure that Google drops Project Dragonfly and any plans to launch a censored search app in China, and to re-affirm the company’s 2010 commitment that it won’t provide censored search services in the country.

In a recent article for Ethics & International Affairs, Citizen Lab founder and director Ronald Deibert challenges the dominant “national security–centric” approach to cybersecurity, reflecting deep divisions to how the broad topic of cybersecurity is currently approached.

The 13th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will convene in France from November 12 to 14. Dedicated to bringing together various stakeholders to address pressing digital public policy issues, Citizen Lab senior researcher Irene Poetranto will be participating in several panels.

The Citizen Lab Summer Institute (CLSI) brings together technologists, political scientists, academics, researchers, activists, artists, and members of civil society to address some the most pressing issues at the centre of technology and human rights.

Citizen Lab senior research fellow Bill Marczak and Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz joined CNN to discuss how NSO’s Pegasus spyware found on Omar’s phone is linked to Jamal Khashoggi.

Following a Citizen Lab report that identified the presence of NSO’s Pegasus spyware technology in Quebec, researchers contacted Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi Arabian dissident and Canadian permanent resident who has long been critical of the regime in Riyadh. After an extensive investigation, they discovered that his phone had been targeted with this powerful spyware and the operators of the technology were linked to Saudi Arabia’s government and security services.