Back
Citizen Lab - Digital Rights Research
webcitizenlab.ca·citizenlab.ca/
Citizen Lab is a leading empirical research institution documenting how governments and private actors deploy digital tools against civil society; relevant to AI governance, misuse risks, and deployment accountability discussions.
Metadata
Importance: 52/100homepage
Summary
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research lab investigating digital threats to democracy, human rights, and global security, including state-sponsored surveillance, spyware misuse, and AI-enabled influence operations. Their work documents cases of forensic tools like Cellebrite being misused against civil society actors and exposes disinformation campaigns by state and private actors. It serves as a primary source for empirical research on digital repression worldwide.
Key Points
- •Investigates misuse of commercial surveillance tools (e.g., Cellebrite, Pegasus) against journalists, activists, and political figures globally.
- •Documents AI-enabled influence operations, including a case attributed to Israeli government entities targeting Iranian audiences.
- •Provides forensic evidence-based reporting connecting specific technologies to specific human rights violations.
- •Research spans targeted surveillance, disinformation, and internet censorship with a civil society protection focus.
- •Serves as a key counterintelligence resource for NGOs and civil society organizations facing state-level digital threats.
Cited by 1 page
| Page | Type | Quality |
|---|---|---|
| AI Authoritarian Tools | Risk | 91.0 |
Cached Content Preview
HTTP 200Fetched Apr 9, 20266 KB
The Citizen Lab - The Citizen Lab
Skip to content
Opens in a new window
Opens an external site
Opens an external site in a new window
Focus Areas
App Security & Privacy
Artificial Intelligence
Censorship
Digital Transnational Repression
Disinformation
Law & Policy
Mass Surveillance
Targeted Surveillance
Subscribe to our newsletter
Search by keyword
Search for:
Counterintelligence for civil society
Investigating novel threats to democracy, human rights, and global security in the digital ecosystem.
Uncovering Webloc
An Analysis of Penlink’s Ad-based Geolocation Surveillance Tech
Mass Surveillance Targeted Surveillance
Location data collected from mobile apps and digital advertising can reveal habits, interests and almost any other aspect of someone’s life. In this report, we uncover how a geolocation surveillance system called Webloc uses ad-based data to monitor hundreds of millions of people across the globe.
April 9, 2026
From Protest to Peril
Cellebrite Used Against Jordanian Civil Society
Targeted Surveillance
Through a multi-year investigation, we find that the Jordanian security apparatus has deployed forensic extraction products manufactured by Cellebrite against civil society devices. We release these findings alongside reporting from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) which includes interviews with a few of the victims.
January 22, 2026
Not Safe for Politics
Cellebrite Used on Kenyan Activist and Politician Boniface Mwangi
Targeted Surveillance
Following the widely-condemned arrest in July 2025 of prominent Kenyan opposition voice Boniface Mwangi, the Citizen Lab analyzed artefacts from devices seized during the arrest. We found that Cellebrite’s forensic extraction tools were used on his Samsung phone while it was in police custody. This case adds to the concerning pattern of the misuse of Cellebrite technology by government clients.
February 17, 2026
Counterintelligence for civil society
Investigating novel threats to democracy, human rights, and global security in the digital ecosystem.
Counterintelligence for civil society
Investigating novel threats to democracy, human rights, and global security in the digital ecosystem.
Uncovering Webloc
An Analysis of Penlink’s Ad-based Geolocation Surveillance Tech
Mass Surveillance Targeted Surveillance
Location data collected from mobile apps and digital advertising can reveal habits, interests and almost any other aspect of someone’s life. In this report, we uncover how a geolocation
... (truncated, 6 KB total)Resource ID:
6177c1e309e74c64 | Stable ID: sid_c9L1ucwCwl