State of Surveillance: A year of digital threats to civil society

Drawing on research by Amnesty International and partners over the past year, we will examine how the digital threats facing activists and journalists continue to evolve and adapt. Progress has been made in reigning in abuses from highly invasive spyware, with vendors going out of business and others being hit by lawsuits and sanctions. The technical arms race between defenders and the exploit industry also shows signs for cautious optimism. However notorious spyware companies, occasionally with active government protection, continue taking steps to block much needed accountability efforts. Amnesty International will also the findings of a brand new investigation into the misuse of surveillance technology. The work for civil society to defend against these threats remains challenging. Surveillance vendors continue to deploy increasing murky webs of brokers and complex corporate structures to hide their activities, although we will show tactics that can be used to map these. The emerging surveillance threats at the intersection of mass surveillance, ad tech, and artificial intelligence are becoming all too real, and surveillance tactics continues to unequally and dangerously impact already marginalized people including woman and LGBTQI activists.