Emile Dirks is a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab, where he explores authoritarian politics, biometric surveillance, and transnational repression. He is the author of numerous reports on Chinese police surveillance programs and the co-author of a forthcoming book on how the Chinese government governs its diaspora. Over his career, Emile has served as a visiting scholar at Yunnan University, a non-resident research associate at the London School of Economics, and a Futures Fellow with the Mercator Institute for China Studies. Emile’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and Foreign Policy, and he has testified before the United States’ Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He currently serves on the board of directors of PEN Canada.
Publications
Tall Tales
How Chinese Actors Use Impersonation and Stolen Narratives to Perpetuate Digital Transnational Repression
In collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), we identified two distinct actors aligned with the People’s Republic of China that have been targeting and impersonating journalists and civil society. Our findings provide insight into the Chinese government’s practice of digital transnational repression and its shift to a system of state-sponsored attacks carried out by private contractors.
Transnational Repression in the Age of Upheaval
Global Policy Changes for Canada
In a policy brief for the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Citizen Lab researchers argue that the Canadian government must do more to protect diaspora members from transnational repression. In the face of powerful authoritarian states and new surveillance capabilities, Canada’s domestic and foreign policy has hindered its ability to respond to threats of transnational […]
Citizen Lab commentary in Brookings
The TikTok debacle
“What separates benign foreign influence from malign interference? And if foreign-owned platforms like TikTok are used for both interference and influence, how should we respond?” In this piece for Brookings, Diana Fu, associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto and Emile Dirks, research associate at the Citizen Lab, discuss issues like soft […]
