Third NYT front cover for Citizen Lab

July 10, 2017

For the third time this year, Citizen Lab’s latest report has made the New York Times front cover (July 10, 2017). The report confirms that a phone belonging to an international group of experts from several countries assembled by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (known as the GIEI), charged with investigating the 2014 Iguala Mass Disappearance, was targeted with infection attempts using spyware developed by the NSO group, an Israeli “cyber warfare” company.

The 2014 Iguala Mass Disappearance refers to a horrific episode in which 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College disappeared while travelling to Mexico City to participate in an event commemorating yet another tragic episode in Mexico, the Tlatelolco Massacre. The Mexican government’s inadequate response to the mass disappearance, and suspicions that Mexican government agencies themselves were implicated, led to calls for the creation of the independent international investigation.

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), human rights, and global security. The full report is available here. The New York Times article is available here.

Picture: Ron Deibert, Political Scientist and Director, The Citizen Lab.