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.

While there has been much discussion about the use of software described as ‘implants’ or ‘backdoors’ to perform targeted surveillance, this report is about the less well understood method by which most targeted surveillance is delivered: network injection.

Citizen Lab Post-doctoral fellow Christopher Parsons was interviewed in The Calgary Herald on the issue of privacy and mass surveillance.

We analyze a newly discovered Android implant that we attribute to Hacking Team and highlight the political subtext of the bait content and attack context. In addition, we expose the functionality and architecture of Hacking Team’s Remote Control system and operator tradecraft in never-before published detail.

Citizen Lab Post-doctoral fellow Christopher Parsons and Cyber Stewards Ramiro Álvarez Ugarte and Hisham Almiraat are some of the experts quoted in the press release.

Citizen Lab Post-doctoral Fellow Christopher Parsons was interviewed on CBC News on 8 May about state cyber surveillance in Canada.

German Deputy Prime Minister Sigmar Gabriel has announced that Germany will cease to export surveillance technology to a group of countries that includes Turkey, on the grounds that this technology is being used as a means to suppress the citizens of these countries.

Citizen Lab’s Morgan Marquis-Boire spoke to Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany’s largest daily paper) about the use of so-called “lawful intercept” technology as tools surveillance.

In this post we analyze the partial disclosures concerning Canada’s federal agencies’ domestic telecommunications surveillance practices. We argue that key federal agencies remain unaccountable to Parliamentarians and the Canadian public alike, and that accountability measures are urgently needed for Canadians to understand the extent of their federal government’s surveillance activities.

On January 20, 2014 the Citizen Lab along with leading Canadian academics and civil liberties groups asked Canadian telecommunications companies to reveal the extent to which they disclose information to state authorities. This post summarizes and analyzes the responses from the companies, and argues that the companies have done little to ultimately clarify their disclosure policies. We conclude by indicating the subsequent steps in this research project.