RNW, Lauren Comiteau, 13 December 2012
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| (Photo: DeclanTM) |
Are emails,
cell phone records and SMS transcripts the latest additions to the tyrant’s
arsenal?
In the
digital age, electronic information seems to be attracting the attention of
human rights groups almost as often as rubber hoses, sleep deprivation and
water boards and information activists are calling for a burgeoning “digital
weapons” trade to be nipped in the bud.
There’s
growing concern about the sale of internet surveillance technology to countries
with questionable human rights records. Activists say companies supplying the
technologies need to be exposed and regulated.
“Several
European countries are supplying systems used to track and trace activists for
repressive purposes,” says Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European
Parliament who is tasked with overseeing its Digital Freedom Strategy. “We need
to know what is exported to whom.”
Shady deals
Schaake
can’t even say if her own country is involved, hence “the need for greater
accountability.” But investigative reports by Bloomberg, Reuters and other
media outlets have implicated some companies and European countries. German
electronics giant Siemens is reported to have sold surveillance gear to
Bahrain, which the US added to its list of human rights violators earlier this
year.
Currently
there are ad hoc sanctions against selling such spy systems to Iran and Syria.
But Schaake, and NGOs such as Humans Rights Watch and Reporters without
Borders, are calling on the European Union to regulate internet surveillance
tools the way they “verify the quality of foods and medicine or conventional
weapons.”
Double-edged
sword
“The
struggle for human rights increasingly has a technological component,” says
Schaake, “It’s how countries grip and control populations.” On the flip side of
the technological coin, those same electronic advances allow activists,
bloggers and journalists in repressive regimes to get information out to the
world and organise mass protests in real time. One only has to think of Iran’s
2009 post-election Green Movement and the Arab Spring of 2010.
“It’s a cat
and mouse game,” says Schaake. “But I’ve talked to activists in jail who have
been presented with mobile phone records and emails when they’re being tortured
and asked to identify who they are in contact with. It makes it more difficult
to protect sources and to work for democracy and a just society.”
Iran
doesn’t even have a world wide web, she says, but uses a nationalised internet
more akin to an intranet. “Everything is centralised and monitored.”
Digital
spyware
Human
rights groups say surveillance software programs can be introduced into a targeted
person’s computer via infected attachments or false software uploads. From
there, governments can access hard drive contents, encrypted e-mails or chats,
obtain passwords and even upload files—all without the computer owner’s
knowledge.
According
to HRW, “Some companies explicitly contact state actors such as intelligence
agencies and security authorities to offer these technologies.”
The
surveillance spyware sold by Siemens AG to Bahrain was maintained by Nokia
Siemens Networks (NSN). Bloomberg reports that NSN has divested from Trovicor,
the unit that deals in the surveillance business.
New reality
“We are
very aware that communications technology can be used for good and ill,” an NSN
spokesman told Bloomberg in its August 2012 report. The risk of rights abuses,
he said, was a big reason why NSN got out of the business and established a
human rights policy and diligence programme. But the ultimate responsibility
lies with “the people who use this technology to infringe human rights.”
MEP Schaake
says the laws need to be updated to reflect the new reality we live in. “It’s
also for our own vulnerability,” she says. Such technology “can be used against
Europe, too, to track people here.”
RNW
contacted Siemens for comment but has received no response.
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