January 18, 2022 by Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams Digital privacy advocates were alarmed but not surprised Tuesday by a report alleging that police in Israel used NSO’s Pegasus spyware against Israeli citizens, including opponents of former right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Calcalist, the special operations cyber unit of Israel’s Read more…
November 8, 2021 by Ethics in Tech board member Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams Activists from Palestinian groups recently designated “terrorist organizations” by Israel’s government expressed outrage and resolve Monday following revelations that their phones were hacked with Pegasus spyware, and amid the exposure of a sweeping facial recognition surveillance campaign Read more…
October 14, 2021 by Ethics in Tech board member Brett Wilkins for Common Dreams A day after hundreds of Amazon and Google workers condemned their employers for complicity in Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians, over 40 grassroots groups on Wednesday announced a campaign to amplify the efforts of activists around the world Read more…
By Brett Wilkins In times of great crisis, it is often necessary for governments to curtail civil liberties for the sake of security. This is especially true when the crisis at hand is a global pandemic in which swiftly identifying and isolating disease carriers saves countless lives. Conversely, failure to Read more…
By Brett Wilkins After years of unexplained delays, the United Nations this week released a list of over 100 companies with ties to illegal Israeli settler colonies in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. In a statement released on Wednesday, the UN Human Rights Office identified 112 businesses profiting from Read more…
By Brett Wilkins Microsoft — which recently adopted a set of six core principles for the development of ethical artificial intelligence (AI) — has come under fire for investing in an Israeli company that produces facial recognition technology used to monitor and control Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. AI For Read more…