Observer publishes article about use of spyware
March 2019
Today’s (17 March 2019) UK Observer newspaper published a story about the use of spyware around the world and in particular by countries known for their poor human rights record. These include Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Readers of this blog will know that this has been going on for some time and a report by the University of Toronto’s Citizen’s Lab has been compiling evidence of this activity and publishes reports of the use of spyware around the world. Other organisations like Privacy International are also concerned.
What the Observer article reveals is the scale of the UK’s exports which have amounted to £75m since 2015. Human Rights groups are concerned at this trade since it enables authoritarian governments to penetrate the devices of anyone it doesn’t like and gather information at will from their equipment. The equipment is capable of intercepting email, instant messaging and VoIP communications, as well as spying on users through webcams and microphones and transmitting the data to a command-and-control server.
In addition to the scale of trade, is the issue of secrecy and attempts to get details of what and who is being supplied from Department of International Trade using FOI are largely fruitless. The concern is that what matters is trade and not the purposes to which the equipment is put.
This is of interest in the Salisbury area because one of the firms which manufactures this equipment called Finspy is a firm called GammaTSE based in the village of Porton not far from the city (and not far from Porton Down, the chemical weapons centre – the same Porton). A report by the University of Toronto in 2013 found Finspy installed in 36 countries. The firm’s website coyly describes its service thus;
GammaTSE has been supplying government agencies worldwide with turnkey surveillance projects since the 1990s. GammaTSE manufactures highly specialized surveillance vehicles and integrated surveillance systems, helping government agencies collect data and communicate it to key decision-makers for timely decisions to be made.
An earlier post described the firm’s activities in more detail. The UK is therefore heavily involved in a trade which allows governments to intercept messages of human rights activists, opposition members, journalists and more or less anyone it does not like.
Amnesty in Salisbury 