As part of the 16 Days Against Gender Based Violence, we are releasing our new report “Online Privacy Threats to Women and the LGBTIQ Community in Lebanon,” which documents the state of digital privacy for women and LGBTIQ individuals in the country. We found that although the digital space can[...]
Feature image via Freedom House, November 2018: A map of Freedom House’s “Internet Freedom” rankings. In collaboration with Freedom House, SMEX assessed internet freedom in Lebanon as part of the organization’s Freedom on the Net 2018 Report. Lebanon’s “Internet Freedom Score” increased from 46 in 2017 to 47 in 2018,[...]
Feature image via the Daily Star, August 2018: An “Ugly” New Data Protection Law in Lebanon. The English translation of Chapter 5 of the E-Transactions Law concerning the processing of personal data can be found at the end of the article. An “Ugly” New Data Protection Law in Lebanon The[...]
As part of an ongoing collaboration with Privacy International, SMEX produced ”State of Privacy Lebanon,” a new briefing that intends to establish foundational knowledge about privacy in Lebanon. The report tackles the right to privacy, communication surveillance, data protection, identification schemes, and policies and sectoral initiatives. The report not only details[...]
On January 18, researchers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and security company Lookout published a report uncovering a global malware espionage campaign operated from the building of the General Directorate of General Security in Beirut. Dubbed Dark Caracal, the campaign partly relies on the use of fake Android apps[...]
Feature image via Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch: A large watchful eye observes as three laptops display information on their screens. (Beirut) – Lebanon’s general prosecutor should investigate reports of secret large-scale surveillance tied to a Lebanese intelligence agency, seven human rights and media organizations said today. Privacy and surveillance researchers on January[...]
Feature image via the Dark Caracal technical report: revealing the researchers’ observed locations of compromised devices. A major cyber-espionage campaign — targeting thousands of individuals across 21 countries — is operating out of a Lebanese intelligence agency building, according to a joint report published Thursday by digital rights organization Electronic[...]
This article was written by SMEX’s Jessica Dheere and Asser Khattab and published in the Global Information Society Watch 2017 annual report. Despite auspicious beginnings, the evolution of the Arab Internet Governance Forum (IGF) over the last six years has left stakeholders around the region deeply skeptical of its future.[...]
In December 2017, the Lebanese Ministry of Telecommunications, headed by Minister Jamal Jarrah, started taking steps to mandate biometric registration of prepaid SIM cards, allegedly for security reasons. The proposal to register SIM cards with biometric data was announced without providing a policy assessment to the public, or conducting a[...]
Photo by Garry Knight licensed under Creative Commons 2.0. In the absence of a comprehensive constitutional framework on privacy rights and data protection in Lebanon and amid a culture of secrecy around these issues, SMEX researched the country’s current digital surveillance landscape. “Mapping the Landscape of Digital Surveillance in[...]
