Telecom Surveillance

Since 2020 I’ve investigated various aspects of telecom surveillance, focusing on private sector suppliers and brokers of geolocation and interception technologies. Published work, with multiple international media partners and coordinated by Lighthouse Reports and before that The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, includes:

• An epic sweep of two decades of phone tracking activities by Austrian/Indonesian firm First Wap (with Paper Trail Media and a dozen international media partners) – and associated methodology

• How lowest-cost SMS outsourcing by the world’s largest tech companies leaves customers vulnerable to account takeovers (with Bloomberg Businessweek) – and associated methodology

• The story of a maverick Swiss telecom specialist and Wikileaks ally turned international surveillance enabler (with Der Spiegel, Haaretz, Tages Anzeiger and Mediapart)

• Flight of the Predator - how the company at the centre of Europe’s biggest surveillance scandal sold tech to a notorious militia in Sudan (with Haaretz and Inside Story) - also featured in a Darknet Diaries podcast.

• The hidden subsidiary of an Italian interception firm which penetrated telecom networks worldwide via the Pacific Islands (with Der Spiegel, Domani, IRPI, Mediapart and EU Observer)

• A bulk SMS firm, service provider to the biggest of big tech companies, which offered network access to spies (with Bloomberg News)

• How an Israeli company used the UK’s Channel Islands to covertly access phone network data … and track a princess (with The Guardian)

• An examination of some EU projects to predict refugee movements via telecom data, satellites and social media (with EU Observer)

I’ve also given presentations of research in progress on this topic at conferences including Surveillance Studies Network 2022, 2024 and 2026; Rightscon 2023; and GIJC 2025. You can hear me talk about some aspects of this work on a July 2026 podcast with The Maybe.