Experts concerned as Canada's national police force admits use of spyware to hack phones

In Canada, experts are calling out the use of powerful spyware to surveil citizens by the national police force. The Guardian reported that experts have warned the country is "asleep at the wheel" when it comes to the useof technology by police and other authorities. In the last week of June, for the first time, Canada's national police force described how it uses spyware to infiltrate mobile devices and collect data. In a remarkable admission, the police force said that they do surveillance by remotely turning on the camera and microphone of a suspect's phone or laptop.

As quoted by The Guardian, Ron Deibert, a political science professor at the University of Toronto and head of Citizen Lab, said that the spyware is quite similar to "nuclear-level technology" but it has little government oversight.

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As per the expert, the technology gives police an "extraordinary window into every aspect of someone’s personal life". He also said that "there's a culture of secrecy that pervades the intelligence and law enforcement community in this country."

Deibert also said that he and others had suspicion over Canadian police and government agencies were using the technology. However, there's no disclosure regarding from whom the government is purchasing the software.

He said, "That’s my biggest unanswered question. Because we know there are some companies that are horrible when it comes to due diligence and routinely sell to governments that use it for grotesque human rights violations."

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The Royal Canadian Mounted Police submitted a document during a parliamentary session to describe how a special investigative team covertly infiltrates the mobile devices of Canadians.

Media reports suggested that the tools give the police access to text messages, email, photos, videos, audio files, calendar entries and financial records. The tools have been used on at least 10 investigations between 2018 and 2020.

RCMP says it only uses such tools in the most serious caseswhen less intrusive techniques are unsuccessful.

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