News

Citizen Lab researchers have co-authored two submissions to the Committee on Enforced Disappearances and UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.  One submission focuses on digital tools that enable disappearances, calling on host states to protect against rights violations caused by digital transnational repression. The authors argue  that enforced disappearances have been facilitated by […]

In an opinion piece for The Globe and Mail, The Citizen Lab’s Emile Dirks, Siena Anstis, Noura Aljizawi, and Ron Deibert, argue that while the final report of the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions (the Hogue Commission) found no evidence of Canadian MPs collaborating with foreign states to […]

The Citizen Lab is at the forefront of investigating and reporting on abuses of mercenary spyware. Our submission highlights the capabilities of spyware and the nature of the spyware industry; how surveillance technology is used to violate fundamental human rights, and more particularly how it is related to enforced disappearances; and we provide recommendations for states, spyware companies, other businesses, civil society, and the Working Group.

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.