Ron Deibert
Founder & Director
Ron Deibert (O.C., O.Ont.) is a professor of political science and the founder and director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. His research focuses on the intersections of information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security. Under his leadership, the Citizen Lab has produced over 180 influential reports on cyber espionage, commercial spyware, internet censorship, and digital threats to human rights, including landmark investigations such as “Tracking Ghostnet” and “China’s Great Cannon.” These reports have been cited widely in global media, garnering more than 25 front page exclusives in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and other leading media outlets, and have been cited by policymakers, academics, and civil society as foundational to the understanding of digital technologies, human rights, and global security.
Professor Deibert is the author of notable books including Chasing Shadows: Cyber Espionage, Subversion, and the Global Fight for Democracy (2025), RESET: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society (2020), which won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy and the Dark Side of Cyberspace (2013). His work as Director of the Citizen Lab and as a scholar has received extensive recognition: in 2013, he was appointed to the Order of Ontario; in 2020, he was awarded two ISA (International Studies Association) awards: the ISA Canada Distinguished Scholar award and the STAIR Distinguished Scholar ‘Transversal Acts’ award; and in 2022, he was named Officer of the Order of Canada – the country’s second highest civilian order of merit. Currently, Professor Deibert serves on the editorial boards of several renowned academic journals, including International Political Sociology, Explorations in Media Ecology, Review of Policy Research, and the Journal of Global Security Studies. He has also served on the advisory boards of Access Now, Privacy International, the technical advisory groups of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and is an active member of the advisory boards of PEN Canada and the Spyware Accountability Initiative.
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Publications
We Say You Want a Revolution
PRISONBREAK – An AI-Enabled Influence Operation Aimed at Overthrowing the Iranian Regime
The control and strategic manipulation of information has long played a role in the geopolitical and ideological competition between the Islamic Republic of Iran and its political adversaries, including Israel. Prior Citizen Lab research has uncovered Iranian disinformation efforts, however, in this investigation we focus on the “other side” of the geopolitical competition. We analyzed an influence operation we assess as most likely undertaken by an entity of the Israeli government or a private subcontractor working closely with it.
Virtue or Vice? A First Look at Paragon’s Proliferating Spyware Operations
In our first investigation into Israel-based spyware company, Paragon Solutions, we begin to untangle multiple threads connected to the proliferation of Paragon’s mercenary spyware operations across the globe. This report includes an infrastructure analysis of Paragon’s spyware product, called Graphite; a forensic analysis of infected devices belonging to members of civil society; and a closer look at the use of Paragon spyware in both Canada and Italy.
Silenced by Surveillance
The Impacts of Digital Transnational Repression on Journalists, Human Rights Defenders, and Dissidents in Exile
The Citizen Lab’s Siena Anstis and Ron Deibert examine the phenomenon of digital transnational repression in “Silenced by Surveillance: The Impacts of Digital Transnational Repression on Journalists, Human Rights Defenders, and Dissidents in Exile”, published by Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Read the essay here.
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