Now this is some incredible journalism…
Immigration NZ enlists ‘cyber mercenaries’ banned from Facebook to covertly collect data
The government is working with an Israeli-born surveillance firm named among a group of “cyber mercenaries” and kicked off Facebook for spying on people.
It is keeping most of the operations with Cobwebs Technologies secret, but they include Immigration NZ.
Cobwebs is among seven foreign companies accused in late 2021 by tech giant Meta of setting up fake accounts to spy on almost 50,000 people, including journalists, human rights activists, politicians and others in more than 100 countries.
Meta, formerly Facebook, reported it had identified “customers” of Cobwebs in at least seven countries including New Zealand.
“In addition to collecting information about their targets, the accounts used by Cobwebs’ customers also engaged in social engineering to join closed communities and forums and trick people into revealing personal information,” its report claimed.
RNZ is reporting this aspect of the 10-month-old investigation for the first time, after forcing officials here to release information about their own dealings with Cobwebs for the first time, by appealing to the Ombudsman.
Meta said in late 2021 it had removed about 200 accounts operated by Cobwebs and its customers worldwide.
The OIA documents released this week show Immigration NZ has been a customer of Cobwebs for about two years.
Immigration NZ required the firm to be able to covertly collect data including people’s “political information” and “religious preference”, the documents show.
It also has to be able to collect banking, health and family relationships information for Immigration.
…standing ovation to RNZ for uncovering this extraordinary story.
This isn’t the first time the NZ security apparatus have used surveillance mercenaries for their spying.
The NZ Police are currently using mass surveillance facial recognition software from an Orwellian company that illegally sources photos without any sign off from the Privacy Commissioner or their own Police Boss!
Dataworks Plus, NEC and Clearview AI are all part of a clique of surveillance mercenaries who are subcontracted in to spy when the domestic law prohibits it.
All have civil rights complaints against them, all have zero oversight.
NZ is using these surveillance mercenaries so they aren’t breaking any laws spying domestically on permanent residents or foreigners. My guess is Immigration are using them to spy on Chinese nationals.
This is the same game the domestic State agencies were indulging in when they circumvented laws by using private detective agency Thompson and Clark which Jacinda shut down when she gained power.
In this new scenario, Government Agencies are sub contracting out the spying to these surveillance mercenaries so there is no paper trail and no clear accountability if the programs are ever made public.
It’s another gasp inducing realisation that the Government purposely creates ways to avoid being held accountable for spying on us.
The problem with subcontracting this out, is that it allows the people being paid to spy for us a clear list of what our interests are and what our intel is.
NZ being a member of 5 Eyes gives us enormous power and other countries would be very interested in knowing what we know.
This story will immediately sink beneath the surface of Seven Sharp and The Program as we grapple endlessly over petty shit that never explains the power nexus that is secretly spying on us.
NZ media will spend more time on Fuck Boy Island than scrutinising this.
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Pennington and others at RNZ don’t get the credit they deserve often. Let’s hope they stay around when the PME shambles takes over
Good god, the government then are actually the nefarious online presence we should be protected against.
the whole point of 5 eyes isn’t external threats it’s country A spies on the citizens of country B (shares the info)and country A can say we are a democracy, we don’t spy on our own people and on goes the circle jerk.
100% Martin. Also super hypocritical of this Govt and hugely open to abuse. The words political and religious should send a shudder down our spines as should the unaccountability aspect. NSA type spying is alive and well here in NZ.
Probably why the Police are chomping at the bit to expand their surveillance powers. They feel they are the only Investigative agency in NZ who doesn’t have access to them!