This report investigates the surveillance capabilities of IMSI Catchers, efforts by states to prevent information relating to IMSI Catchers from entering the public record, and the legal and policy frameworks that govern the use of these devices. The report principally focuses on Canadian agencies but, to do so, draws comparative examples from other jurisdictions. The report concludes with a series of recommended transparency and control mechanisms that are designed to properly contain the use of the devices and temper their more intrusive features.

Director Ronald J. Deibert Professor of Political Science, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy Director email: ron at citizenlab.ca (pgp) Staff and Research Fellows Bahr Abdul Razzak Security Researcher email: bahr at citizenlab.ca (pgp) Mohamed Ahmed Research Assistant email: mohamed.ahmed at citizenlab.ca Noura Al-Jizawi Senior Researcher email: noura at citizenlab.ca David Annable Systems… Read more »

On June 14, 2022, Bill C-26, an Act respecting cybersecurity, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, was introduced into Parliament for the first reading by Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino. Hearings on Bill C-26 are scheduled to begin in SECU (the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Safety and… Read more »

We consistently found that Bing censors politically sensitive Chinese names over time, that their censorship spans multiple Chinese political topics, consists of at least two languages—English and Chinese—and applies to different world regions, including China, the United States, and Canada.

In order to contribute to the IPC’s deliberations in the triaging of its strategic priorities, this submission serves to provide particularized input with respect to the IPC’s public interest mandate in the oversight of law enforcement authorities when it comes to the use of algorithmic policing technology in Ontario.

As part of her ongoing research on developing resilience in high-risk digital crisis response networks, Citizen Lab doctoral fellow Jennie Phillips will be speaking at a number of events.

A new Citizen Lab report has found that Canada-based Netsweeper filtering products have been identified on three ISPs in Somalia.