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FinFisher in Mexico: smile, you are still being spied

Document Citado por Related
Vincent
AutorPepe Flores
Páginas219-222

Page 219

See note 90

In March 2013, the Citizen Lab of the University of Toronto published the report For Their Eyes Only: The Commercialization of Digital Spying. For Mexico, this report marked a turning point: the researchers found the surveillance software FinFisher operating in two telecommunication networks: Iusacell and Uninet (a subsidiary of Telmex).

FinFisher is a surveillance software made by Gamma International, supposedly sold to national security oficers. The software is installed in the devices of the supervised person (mobile phone, computer), supplanting a legitimate program. For example, in May 2013, the Mozilla Foundation denounced that FinFisher supplanted the Firefox brand to go unnoticed. Once that FinFisher is installed, it gives the attacker remote control of the device, allowing him to record conversations, access saved iles, download contact lists, e-mails, SMS, amongst others. FinFisher can also intervene the camera and microphone of the infected gadget.

These indings mobilized the Mexican activists in 2013 to demand to the Federal Institute of Information Access (INAI, formerly IFAI) to open an investigation, specially because of the suspicion that activists, journalists, and Human Rights defenders were target of this software. Jesús Robles Maloof, lawyer, published the column "Smile, you’re being spied", on which

Page 220

he points out that FinFisher may have been purchased by the Federal government or a local one – or even by a body of the organized crime.

The revelations incited the deputy Juan Pablo Adame to issue a call to the Federal administration to submit a report about the use of FinFisher in the intelligence collection activities, exhorting both the INAI and the Secretary of the Interior to inquire into the matter. In the same month, members of the Desobediencia Civil (Civil Disobedience) group accused to have found traces of the spyware in their cellphones and computers.

However, two years have passed and the uncertainty remains about the government’s accountability regarding the acquisition and use of FinFisher. Recently in April 2015, the Special Commission of Digital Agenda and Information Technologies of the Mexican Congress – presided by Adame himself – hosted a hearing with diverse specialists in the FinFisher issue. In front of the representatives, the organization SonTusDatos presented the report "Global Information Society Watch 2014. Communications Surveillance in the Digital Age...

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