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| War on Iran |
| Inside the plan to kill Ali Khamenei: Israel spent years hacking Tehran’s traffic cameras and monitoring bodyguards ahead of the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader. Financial Times Iranian drone strikes at Amazon sites raise alarms over protecting data centers: Tech industry’s past focus on cyberattacks and natural disasters overshadowed threats of physical attacks. Rest of World Eyes of Iran: New revelations about how Iranian regime uses a powerful Russian facial recognition software to monitor its citizens. Forbidden Stories Tech Policy Press: Experts talk about key questions on the role of technology in the expanding Middle East war. In the pretext of nationwide communications blackout in Iran, read the Manifesto for a Free Internet by Iranian Women’s Coalition for Internet Freedom. |
| The India AI Impact Summit 2026 |
| India’s New IT Rules: A High-Stakes Bet on AI Detection India has become the first country to tie platforms’ legal protections to the reliability of AI detection tools for identifying synthetic content. While the new IT Amendment Rules introduce provenance metadata and compressed takedown timelines, critics argue the framework relies on ineffective detection tools and places the burden solely on platforms rather than the entire AI pipeline. Read the analysis: Tech Policy Press, WITNESS Institutional Analysis Amnesty International: India AI Impact Summit Fails to Curb Destructive Practices As the AI Summit concludes, Amnesty International reports that the event failed to address the harmful deployment of AI in India, where systems are increasingly powering state-led authoritarian practices. The assessment highlights a shrinking civic space and a “gulf” between state rhetoric on “innovation” and the reality of unchecked industry power and human rights concerns. Full statement: Amnesty International Reframing Impact: The AI Summit 2026 Series In collaboration with the AI Now Institute and Aapti Institute, this series features twelve interviews reframing AI discourse ahead of the Delhi Summit. Part two includes Timnit Gebru on the myths of frugal AI, Abeba Birhane debunking AI for good, Audrey Tang on democratization, and Nikhil Dey on achieving real accountability from power structures. More information: Reframing Impact Series Commentary: The Spectacle of the AI Impact Summit An analysis of why the AI Summit’s structure may offer little more than a spectacle, potentially avoiding the binding rights protections necessary to safeguard the public from rapid AI investment. Read here: Tech Policy Press |
| News & Commentaries |
| Meta AI Smart Glasses: “We See Everything” A joint investigation by Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgs-Posten reveals that Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses send intimate, unblurred footage to contract workers in Kenya. Despite privacy promises, data annotators describe viewing sexual encounters and private home life captured by users who didn’t realize they were recording. The report exposes the failure of automated privacy filters to protect users’ most personal moments. Read here:Svenska Dagbladet Tested on Palestinians: Epstein and Barak’s Spy Tech Pushed in Nigeria A Drop Site News investigation reveals how Jeffrey Epstein and former Israeli PM Ehud Barak marketed biometric surveillance to Nigeria during the Boko Haram crisis. Initially battle-tested on Palestinians at Gaza’s Erez crossing, this “field-proven” tech was sold for profit in Nigeria’s oil and campus security sectors. The report highlights how high-level private networks helped Israeli intelligence veterans export occupation-honed surveillance tools to unstable regions. Read here: Al Jazeera Intellexa Founder Sentenced in Wiretapping Scandal A Greek court has convicted Intellexa founder Tal Dilian and three other executives for their roles in the illegal wiretapping of government officials and journalists. Each defendant was sentenced to eight years in prison, marking the first time executives of a mercenary spyware firm have faced such consequences. The case, known as “Predatorgate,” highlights the global reach of Intellexa’s Predator spyware, which has been used by regimes worldwide to target activists and reporters. Read here:ICIJ 49 African Nations Adopt Digital ID Systems Amid Surveillance Risks By early 2026, forty-nine African nations have adopted digital ID systems, with thirty-five using biometrics for elections and essential services. Covering over 500 million registrations, these frameworks aim to boost GDP by linking IDs to mobile money and health records. While pioneers like Rwanda report high coverage, critics warn that centralized biometrics are being exploited by authoritarian regimes for repression. Without robust cybersecurity or privacy laws, these systems risk mass tracking and the exclusion of millions of citizens who lack formal identification. Read here: Tech Africa News Offline and Silenced: The Rise of Internet Repression in Africa Internet shutdowns in Africa reached a record high of 28 disruptions across the continent in 2025, often coinciding with elections and protests. From Tanzania’s blackout on voting day to systematic cuts in Ethiopia and Senegal, governments are increasingly using “national security” as a pretext to silence dissent. These disruptions cost sub-Saharan Africa over $1 billion in 2025 alone, crippling mobile money and humanitarian aid. Despite international resolutions against the practice, digital blackouts are becoming a normalized tool for narrative control and political repression. Read here: Infrastructure News Kenyan Authorities Used Cellebrite Tech to Crack Activist’s Phone A report by Citizen Lab found that Kenyan authorities used Israeli technology made by Cellebrite to break into the phone of pro-democracy activist Boniface Mwangi while he was in police custody last year. The tool was used to extract all materials from his device, including messages, private files, financial information, passwords, and other sensitive data belonging to Mwangi, who plans to run for president in 2027.Read here: The Guardian Gabon Blocks Social Media Amid Rising VPN Demand The government of Gabon has blocked access to social media platforms “until further notice.” The move has led to a significant surge in the demand for VPN services as citizens attempt to bypass the digital blackout to maintain communication and access information. Read here: TechRadar Russia Deploys DNS and DPI to Block Major Platforms Russia is using Domain Name System (DNS) tampering and Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) to block access to YouTube, Telegram, and WhatsApp. Simultaneously, the state is pushing its controlled “MAX” platform as the primary alternative for citizens. Read here: TechRadar African Gig Workers Unwittingly Supporting US Military Operations An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reveals that the tech firm Appen used low-paid African gig workers to train AI for the US military. Workers transcribed Somali conversations for a secretive unit code-named “Big Safari,” unaware their labor was developing surveillance systems for the Rivet Joint spy plane. Read here: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism Apple’s $2 Billion Payout to Israeli Firm with Military Roots Apple has completed a $2 billion payout to Q.ai, an Israeli firm specializing in facial micro-movement and pre-speech analysis. In this blog, Skyline International for Human Rights examines Apple’s second-largest acquisition, noting the firm was founded by veterans of elite Israeli cyberwarfare units and 30% of its staff were called up for the military campaign during the Gaza genocide. The deal marks a massive investment in “silent speech” capabilities born out of a context of mass surveillance and automated targeting. Read here: Skyline International for Human Rights Taxing Africa’s Informal Economies: Tech’s Promise and Pitfalls As African nations look to digitize tax collection within informal economies, this piece explores the dual nature of these technological interventions. While they promise increased revenue, they also present significant pitfalls regarding the economic stability and privacy of those working in the informal sector. Read here: The Conversation |
| Call for Participation |
| Latin American Forum for Intelligence Studies (inteLA) The upcoming inteLA forum will take place March 25–26, 2026, at the Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUC-RS) in Brazil, organized by a coalition including the University of Hamburg and the Latin American Network of Surveillance, Technology and Society Studies (Lavits) among others. This initiative aims to bridge the gap between academic research and the practical side of intelligence and democracy in Latin America. The forum will address the challenges of democratic oversight as rapid technological shifts expand state surveillance. Researchers, civil society, and public officials are invited to join the dialogue to ensure that Latin American perspectives are centered in global debates rather than being treated as a marginal case. Register CfP: Latin American Network of Studies on Surveillance, Technology and Society (LAVITS) The International Symposium of the Latin American Network of Studies on Surveillance, Technology and Society (LAVITS) returns to Rio de Janeiro in 2026 (26-28 August) at a time of profound disputes about the meaning of the present, its modes of existence and its socio-technical infrastructures. Under the theme “Weaving the present: dissident technopolitics and ecologies of the Common,” we invite researchers, activists, artists, collectives, students and communities to reflect and act on how technologies, inscribed in epistemic, economic, security, territorial and subjective regimes, configure and reconfigure our ways of living, and on the dissidences that strain, deviate or reimagine such regimes. Call for papers |
