Ontario police may have secretly used controversial Israeli spyware, report finds

Kevin Maimann · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 19, 2025 9:39 PM EDT | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

Researchers accidental Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) may have secretly utilized arguable Israeli spyware technology, raising concerns astir imaginable spying connected citizens. 

Citizen Lab, which investigates integer espionage against civilian society, released a study Wednesday identifying "possible links" betwixt the OPP and Paragon Solutions, a institution that sells military-grade spyware called Graphite to authorities clients. 

Graphite tin beryllium utilized to hack into phones, and was precocious recovered to person been utilized against an Italian writer and activists who supported migrants, aft Meta-owned messaging app WhatsApp reported to astir 100 users successful January that their cellphones whitethorn person been compromised. 

Human rights radical Amnesty International called the discovery retired of Italy "alarming" and said it underscored worsening integer surveillance crossed Europe. 

Based connected a extremity from a collaborator, Citizen Lab mapped retired servers connected to Paragon's Graphite tool and found  suspected deployments astatine 5 IP addresses successful Ontario. One of those IP addresses was traced to OPP office successful Orillia, Ont.

OPP did not corroborate oregon contradict the usage of Paragon spyware. Acting Staff Sgt. Jeffrey Del Guidice said successful an email to CBC News that the "interception of backstage communications" requires judicial authorization and is lone utilized successful superior transgression investigations.

"The OPP uses investigative tools and techniques successful afloat compliance with the laws of Canada, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," Del Guidice said. "Releasing accusation astir circumstantial investigative techniques and exertion could jeopardize progressive investigations and endanger nationalist and serviceman safety."

Paragon was founded successful Israel successful 2019 and is present U.S.-owned. Its founders see erstwhile Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, arsenic good as Ehud Schneorson, the erstwhile commandant of Israel's Unit 8200, a secretive cyber warfare portion that was tied to past year's pager attacks in Lebanon that killed much than 30 radical and wounded thousands.

The company's minimal website says it provides clients with "cyber and forensic capabilities to find and analyse integer data, cyber workforce training, and captious infrastructure investigation and menace mitigation."

Law enforcement usage of spyware growing, researchers say

Kate Robertson, a elder researcher astatine Citizen Lab, says the findings underscore the request for governments and privateness regulators to rise questions astir the usage of spyware against citizens, and for instrumentality enforcement agencies to beryllium transparent astir the tools they're using.

"When governments themselves go buyers in this proliferating hack-for-hire industry, they're really investing successful the insecurity and vulnerability of our mundane devices that we beryllium heavy connected to beryllium harmless for each of our regular needs," Robertson told CBC News.

"It's truly turning cybersecurity connected its head, to person governments themselves assistance actors to harbour and exploit vulnerabilities, arsenic opposed to patching them."

Citizen Lab also reported successful 2020 that the OPP developed a exertion to scrape communications from private, password-protected online chatrooms without obtaining judicial authorization.

WATCH | RCMP lawman commissioner discusses arguable usage of spyware technology:

The group's Wednesday report besides elaborate grounds of "a increasing ecosystem of spyware capability" among some the RCMP and Ontario-based constabulary services.

In 2022, the RCMP admitted it had used spyware that it called an "On-Device Investigative Tool" (ODIT) from an unnamed vendor to cod information and infiltrate mobile devices successful much than 30 investigations dating backmost to 2017, without consulting the nationalist oregon the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Citizen Lab researchers obtained nationalist tribunal records showing OPP had besides utilized the RCMP's ODITs in a 2019 investigation, and that the Toronto Police Service (TPS) independently obtained ODIT bundle from an chartless source. 

They say they besides learned of different cases that person been earlier Ontario courts, oregon are presently earlier them, involving different constabulary services that person ODITS oregon person sought authorization to deploy them, including York Regional Police Service, Hamilton Police Service and Peel Regional Police Service, successful summation to OPP and TPS.

"The evident enlargement of spyware capabilities to perchance aggregate constabulary services crossed Ontario reflects a widening spread successful nationalist consciousness surrounding the grade to which mercenary spyware is being deployed successful Canada," the study states.

CBC News reached retired to some the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, but did not perceive backmost successful clip for publication.