Meta says banned 7 ‘surveillance-for-hire’ firms spying on 50,000 users worldwide
Washington: Facebook’s parent company Meta said it took down accounts linked to seven “surveillance-for-hire” entities that targeted thousands of users across the world to manipulate them into disclosing sensitive information that would compromise their devices.
“As a result of our months-long investigation, we took action against seven different surveillance-for-hire entities. They provided services across all three phases of the surveillance chain to indiscriminately target people in over 100 countries on behalf of their clients. These providers are based in China, Israel, India, and North Macedonia,” Meta said in a press release on Thursday.
Meta’s investigation found that an unidentified, Beijing-based company was responsible for developing surveillanceware that was used by domestic law enforcement in China against minority groups in the Asia-Pacific region, including the Xinjiang region of China, Myanmar, and Hong Kong.
The tech giant expects surveillance operations to remain persistent and to keep evolve in their tactics, according to the press release.
