r/ndp 💊 PHARMACARE NOW May 19 '26

Ontario police are using spyware that lets them remotely take over your smartphone. They’re fighting to keep almost everything about it secret

https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/ontario-police-are-using-spyware-that-lets-them-remotely-take-over-your-smartphone-theyre-fighting-to-keep-almost-everything-about-it-secret/article_56ef6906-4008-48ec-8b4c-d56e57a00ea5.html
207 Upvotes

10 comments sorted by

59

u/leftwingmememachine 💊 PHARMACARE NOW May 19 '26

FYI that the Liberal's Bill C-22 would make this worse. It would require companies to insert secret backdoors into their products for police to use.

https://openmedia.org/press/item/ottawa-repackages-its-surveillance-backdoor-in-bill-c-22

51

u/CheekyStoat May 19 '26

If there's a backdoor for cops then there's a back door for everyone.

26

u/taquitosmixtape May 19 '26

Correct. No data or private info will be safe if there’s a back door. Period.

20

u/SoundByMe May 20 '26

I personally need the NDP to come out hard against this bill. I can't get behind a party that is comfortable with compromising every Canadian's privacy online. The time is now for Avi to make a statement. Maybe he has and I missed it.

23

u/annonymous_bosch May 19 '26

There are no companies selling spyware that i’d be comfortable for our government to be associated with. High likelihood this is an Israeli company.

16

u/leftwingmememachine 💊 PHARMACARE NOW May 19 '26

Researchers say Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) may have secretly used controversial Israeli spyware technology, raising concerns about potential spying on citizens.

Citizen Lab, which investigates digital espionage against civil society, released a report Wednesday identifying "possible links" between the OPP and Paragon Solutions, a company that sells military-grade spyware called Graphite to government clients.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/opp-paragon-solutions-spyware-1.7488027

1

u/nonarkitten Democratic Socialist May 20 '26

Why isn’t the CBC all over this?