Surveillance & technology
The Surveillance Industry
First published 1 December 2011 · Private surveillance contractors, including Gamma, Hacking Team and Peter-Service · 3 releases
The companies that sell interception, tracking and intrusion to governments: the Spy Files, the Hacking Team emails, and Spy Files Russia.
Overview
Our work on the commercial surveillance market: firms selling bulk interception, phone-location tracking and covert malware to intelligence agencies, police and militaries. The Spy Files began on 1 December 2011 with 287 documents on as many as 160 contractors, and continued through 2013 and 2014.
In July 2015 we published more than a million internal emails from Hacking Team, the Italian intrusion-software vendor, days after it was breached. In September 2017 Spy Files Russia added technical documents from Peter-Service, a St Petersburg supplier whose kit serves Russia's SORM state-surveillance system.
What reporting revealed
- The first Spy Files release, December 2011, held 287 documents from as many as 160 intelligence contractors.
- The third instalment, September 2013, added 249 documents from 92 contractors.
- Hacking Team material included a €480,000 invoice to Sudan's national intelligence service dated June 2012.
- After the July 2015 breach, Hacking Team told customers to stop using its software.
- Spy Files Russia contained 209 Peter-Service documents from 2007 to 2015.
Catalogue records
Entries describing the release and related documents, with provenance and sources.
| Published | Cat. no. | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-09-19 | FAN-0033 | Spy Files Russia: Peter-Service 209 documents from Peter-Service, a St Petersburg supplier of software to Russian mobile operators, describing data-retention and traffic-analysis systems linked to Russia's SORM state-surveillance framework. | Technical documentation |
| 2015-07-08 | FAN-0025 | Hacking Team Emails A searchable archive of more than one million internal emails from Hacking Team, an Italian seller of intrusion software to governments, which I published days after the company was breached in July 2015. | Emails |
| 2011-12-01 | FAN-0016 | The Spy Files Our first Spy Files release: 287 documents on as many as 160 companies selling bulk-interception, tracking and intrusion technology to governments, which I published with partners in six countries. | Corporate records |
Source
- The Surveillance Industry — original release — wikileaks.org (Original publication)wikileaks.org