Insider Q&A: Internet guardian Ron Deibert of Citizen Lab

BOSTON (AP) — (WIRE VERSION) The internet watchdog Citizen Lab has been remarkably effective in calling to account governments and private sector firms that use information technology to put people in peril.

Its digital sleuths at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs are best known for exposing abusive targeted espionage, particularly through the use of hyper-intrusive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group. Its Pegasus tool has been used to hack and surveil dozens of journalists, human rights activists and dissidents globally. In November, the U.S. government blacklisted NSO Group and Apple sued it and notified Pegasus victims.

Citizen Lab’s work elsewhere is less known. It exposes digital espionage campaigns and insecure software, most recently an app the Chinese government created for athletes, journalists and other foreigners attending the Winter Olympics.

The Associated Press recently spoke with Citizen Lab's director, 57-year-old political scientist and prize-winning author Ron Deibert. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You founded Citizen Lab in 2001. How did that happen?

A: I was doing work on how intelligence agencies use satellite reconnaissance technology for arms control verification. It exposed me to a world that I didn’t even know existed. I saw the mixture of tools being used to gather electronic evidence and wondered why something like that could not be done in the public interest, on behalf of journalists, NGOs, and human rights activists. And what better place to do such evidence-based research – alongside people with technical skills I didn’t have -- than at a university? This was all in the back of my mind when the Ford Foundation reached out to see if I was interested in a project on information tech and international security. So I pitched the lab as...