In the past five years a growing trend has emerged of autocratic governments around the world using sophisticated spyware tools purchased from private Western companies to snoop on journalists.
Originally designed for criminal or intelligence operations, these privately developed technologies are increasingly being used by state agencies to spy on critical and investigative reporters and monitor private communications.
While this form of targeted surveillance is believed to still be limited on a global scale, major revelations in recent years have laid bare the increasing use of these tools against bloggers, activists and journalists, in democracies and dictatorships alike – already with deadly consequences.
In this report, IPI documents the use of such spyware and speaks to affected journalists, researchers and rights groups to highlight the threats such technologies pose to the profession and to media freedom more widely in an increasingly digitalized world.