News
The Citizen Lab has sent an open letter to Francisco Partners in light of the apparent misuse of NSO Group’s technology– a company in which we believe Francisco Partners has a majority stake– and to request timely action in regards to issues raised in previous correspondence.
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.
On Tuesday, November 27, 2018 (05:00 PM – 06:30 PM) Citizen Lab senior researcher Irene Poetranto will be participating in a panel discussion addressing issues of technology-facilitated violence. In partnership with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, this free event will cut across sectors and challenge participants to think critically about the factors that create environments for gender-based online violence to thrive and consider options for countering these systemic and toxic trends.
Citizen lab director Ron Deibert joins Faculty of Law researcher Petra Molnar to warn of the human rights risks in Canada’s use of artificial intelligence in immigration decision-making.
However, the NEB’s failure to address any of the questions in the Citizen Lab’s letter is unfortunate, as making such information available would be in the public interest even if the NEB has decided not to move forward with its initial request for information.
The Citizen Lab’s Ron Deibert and Sarah McKune don’t mince words in a recent op-ed for Just Security about Google’s plan to create a search engine that conforms to China’s demand for censorship.
This call comes on the heels of recent Citizen Lab research which shows that Netsweeper, a Canadian company who has received funding from the Canadian government, is being used by governments to block access to content in ten authoritarian countries around the world, including LGBTQ2+ sites.
Citizen Lab research showed that, at the time, WeChat seemed to use a relatively crude comparison between banned images and content uploaded to the site in order to decide what to block.
New Citizen Lab research reveals how China’s most popular app filters sensitive images and suggests techniques for evasion.
