The University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab has published a report entitled: “Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm Circles”. The document reveals that several African countries including Morocco have offered themselves the cyber weapons of the Israeli company Circles, which is into the production of tools used to dig into the personal communications of opposition politicians, rights activists and journalists. Using just the phone number, the Circles technology can identify a phone’s location anywhere in the world in seconds.
It can also access calls and messaging applications on the device. Cooperation from telecommunications companies is not required, and governments can track targets across borders without the need for a warrant. This type of tool is already used by Israel to track down the actors of Palestinian repression.
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Note that Circles is a sister company of the NSO group, well known for its spyware called Pegasus, which is very popular among authoritarian political regimes. The Citizen Lab cited a total of 18 nations among Circles clients. There are also Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. In the #EndSars case, the latter’s government reportedly used Circles’ tool to sabotage the protests.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer