Findings raise questions about extent and scope of Canadian authorities’ use of cyberweapons

Researchers have uncovered “possible links” between Ontario’s provincial police force and an Israel-based military-grade spyware maker called Paragon Solutions, raising questions about the extent and scope of Canadian authorities’ use of cyberweapons.

The new findings were published by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks and identifies digital threats against civil society, and come three years after a parliamentary committee in Canada called for Ottawa to update the country’s privacy laws in the wake of press reports that the national police force had been using spyware to hack mobile phone devices. No laws were ever passed to address the controversy.