Governments’ use of biometric systems have raised privacy concerns and the need for greater transparency and accountability. This is because these systems collect and store individuals’ physical traits such as fingerprints, facial recognition, iris scans, and other personal characteristics. Biometric identification has been criticized as being error-prone and unreliable, as well as being fundamentally detrimental to privacy, free expression, and the right to anonymity, especially with regards to vulnerable individuals such as dissidents, whistleblowers, and journalists. Members of the Cyber Stewards Network are active in efforts to raise awareness on the use of biometric systems and surveillance technologies.

Citizen Lab Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire gave a talk at the MIT Center for Civic Media in Cambridge, MA on Thursday, November 7, 2013.

November 7, 2013

The Citizen Lab is pleased to announce the release of a new report by Director Ron Deibert, “Shutting the Backdoor: The Perils of National Security and Digital Surveillance Programs,” written for the Strategic Studies Working Group (SSWG), a partnership between the Canadian Defence & Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI) and the Canadian International Council (CIC).

Prominent Technologists’ Comment to the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology includes Citizen Lab’s Security Researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire.

Citizen Lab Technical Advisor Morgan Marquis-Boire was interviewed in an article on Hacking Team published in the Verge on 13 September.

A new article in World Policy Journal as part of the joint project by Privacy International, Agentura.Ru and the Citizen Lab on Russia’s surveillance state.

Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert spoke to Die Zeit about his newly-published book as well as the implications of NSA surveillance.

In this collaborative study between the Citizen Lab and Department of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico we examine the implementation of censorship and surveillance in two IM clients maintained by two different Chinese companies. For a period of more than a year and a half, we downloaded and decrypted the censorship and surveillance keyword lists used by the client software of two IM programs used in China: TOM-Skype and Sina UC.

This Social Media CyberWatch outlines privacy law developments, online service provider relationships with the NSA PRISM program, and Facebook privacy news.