Governments Expand Digital Surveillance Through Interception, Spyware, and Biometric Systems
Governments are broadening digital surveillance through a mix of network interception, lawful intercept platforms, deep packet inspection, mandatory data retention, endpoint spyware, platform monitoring, and public-space surveillance, according to a new risk assessment. The report highlights Russia’s opaque SORM model as a prominent example of state interception architecture and says Chinese and Russian surveillance technologies are being exported to multiple countries, extending these capabilities beyond their domestic markets.
The assessment says commercial spyware including Predator, Candiru, Pegasus, and Paragon has been used against journalists, activists, and civil society, while newer laws and policies in countries such as Ecuador, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Kazakhstan are expanding state access to communications, metadata, biometric records, and internet infrastructure. It also points to growing use of Safe City platforms, facial recognition, IMSI catchers, national messenger apps, digital ID systems, and centralized biometric databases, warning that weak oversight raises risks ranging from privacy abuses and human-rights violations to corporate espionage, zero-day exploitation, and exposure of sensitive personal data.
Get ahead of threats like this
Mallory correlates global threat intelligence with your attack surface — know if you’re exposed before adversaries strike.
How this story unfolded
2 events from the most recent confirmed update back to the earliest known activity.
Met plans static live facial recognition rollout in West End and Soho
The Metropolitan Police Service said it plans to deploy static live facial recognition cameras in London's West End and Soho by the end of 2026. The move follows a six-month Croydon pilot in which police said 24 deployments between October 2025 and March 2026 led to 173 arrests and one false alert.
Recorded Future publishes global digital surveillance risk report
Recorded Future's Insikt Group published an analysis of digital surveillance practices across 193 countries, describing risks from lawful intercept systems, spyware, biometric databases, AI-enabled public surveillance, and weak oversight. The report assessed 31 countries as high or very high risk and 55 more as medium risk.
Related entities
Vulnerabilities, threat actors, malware, products, organizations, and breaches Mallory has linked to this story.
Sources
3 references tracked. Mallory keeps watching after this page renders.
London cops bring live facial recognition to West End
theregister.com
Open sourceAI-Powered Public Surveillance and Biometric Data Collection Expand Government Monitoring
cybersecuritynews.com
Open sourceState Digital Surveillance Risk Landscape
recordedfuture.com
Open sourceSee the full picture, correlated to your attack surface.
Map indicators from this story to your assets and identify affected systems in minutes.
Every observed campaign, victim, and pivot linked to actors named in this story.
Malware, exploits, and IOCs connected to the activity described here.
YARA, Sigma, and Snort rules deployed to your SIEM as soon as they’re published.
Get matching new stories delivered to your team as they break — not the next morning.
Ask questions about this story and take action on the answers.
Related stories
Other stories Mallory is tracking that overlap on entities, sources, or topic labels.
ICE Confirms Paragon Spyware Use as U.S. Commercial Spyware Policy Faces Scrutiny
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to lawmakers that it bought and used Paragon Solutions spyware, including **Graphite**, in investigations tied to drug trafficking, fentanyl networks, and other organizations using encrypted communications. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said the deployment complied with constitutional requirements and the 2023 executive order restricting government use of commercial spyware, but House Democrats including **Rep. Summer Lee** said ICE had not provided enough documentation, safeguards, or oversight to justify such invasive surveillance. The disclosure followed the reactivation of ICE’s Paragon contract after an earlier suspension for review, and came amid wider controversy over reports linking Paragon spyware to targeting of journalists and activists. The admission intensified concerns that U.S. policy may be softening toward the commercial spyware industry even as evidence mounts that these vendors are driving serious cyber abuse. Reporting and research cited growing alarm over the lifting of sanctions on Intellexa executives, new U.S.-linked ownership of **NSO Group** and Paragon, and the expanding role of brokers, resellers, and other intermediaries that help spyware vendors evade export controls and obscure supply chains. Analysts also noted that Google attributed more zero-day exploitation to commercial surveillance vendors than to traditional state-backed groups in 2025, while lawmakers pressed for briefings on federal spyware use and U.S. investment in firms long associated with abuses involving **Pegasus**, **Predator**, and related surveillance tools.
Jun 8, 2026
Irish and UK Government Digital Policy Moves: Expanded Surveillance Powers and In-House Digital ID Build
Ireland is considering legislation to expand law enforcement digital surveillance authorities, including stronger powers to intercept communications (explicitly including **encrypted messages**) and to create a clearer legal basis for police use of **spyware**. The proposal signals a shift toward more formalized state capabilities for communications interception and device compromise, with direct implications for privacy, lawful access, and the security expectations of end-to-end encrypted services. In the UK, the government indicated that a new **digital identity** program is expected to be **designed, built, and run by in-house government teams** rather than outsourced to external suppliers, while declining to provide firm cost estimates ahead of a planned consultation. Ministers stated costs would be met within existing spending settlements, and the government pushed back on an external estimate (reported as **£1.8B**) pending consultation outcomes—raising governance, delivery-risk, and security-assurance questions for a large-scale identity platform even as detailed technical and budgetary specifics remain limited.
Mar 21, 2026
U.S. Federal Agencies Expand Warrantless Commercial Surveillance and Location Data Purchases
The **Department of Homeland Security** and the **FBI** are expanding use of commercially available surveillance and data-tracking capabilities, prompting renewed scrutiny over privacy, civil liberties, and oversight. DHS is reportedly preparing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on surveillance technology in 2026, including a **$1 billion** blanket purchase agreement with *Palantir* and additional investments in AI-enabled monitoring, mobile tracking, and tools from vendors such as *Cellebrite* and *Paragon Solutions*. Advocacy groups and lawmakers have warned that these programs broaden the government’s ability to scan faces, track cell phone activity, and monitor both immigrants and U.S. citizens while governance mechanisms fail to keep pace. The **FBI** separately confirmed it has resumed buying Americans’ location and other commercially available data from brokers, reviving a practice the bureau had previously said it was not actively pursuing. Director **Kash Patel** told lawmakers the agency uses purchased data in ways it says are consistent with the Constitution and the **Electronic Communications Privacy Act**, while Sen. **Ron Wyden** characterized the practice as a warrantless workaround to Fourth Amendment protections. Reporting on DHS also indicates declining transparency, with Privacy Impact Assessment filings falling sharply and the department’s inspector general accusing the agency of obstructing audits tied to biometric data management and immigration enforcement, reinforcing concerns that federal surveillance capabilities are growing faster than meaningful oversight.
Mar 21, 2026