Gamma/FinFisher: UK rebukes German-British software company

United Kingdom – Surveillance – Gamma/FinFisher

British-German surveillance technology provider Gamma International infringed on its human rights obligations with products such as “state trojan” FinFisher. This was confirmed in February 2015 by the UK’s OECD National Contact Point (NCP) on Thursday in the final assessment of a complaint submitted by human rights groups.

The NCP calls on Gamma – explicitly including other companies affiliated with the corporation – to implement effective human rights standards. The Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Bahrain Watch, ECCHR, Privacy International and Reporters Without Borders in 2013 submitted a complaint at the NCP in London against Gamma, and a parallel complaint at the German NCP against Munich-based surveillance company Trovicor GmbH. The non-governmental organizations accuse the companies of sharing a responsibility for arrests, imprisonments and torture of opposition members, journalists and dissidents in the Arab Gulf state of Bahrain by supplying surveillance technology and technical support.

Case

Since the dawn of the Arab Spring, the use of systematic surveillance of telecommunications as a tool to repress peaceful protest movements has become a common problem. Since the start of the mass protests in February 2011, the Arab Gulf State of Bahrain has used information obtained through intercepted telephone and internet connections to secure arrests of and extract confessions from dissidents. Such actions are facilitated by high-performance technologies, the use of which could only be justified if strictly bound by the highest rule of law standards.

There is evidence to suggest that Trovicor maintains software in Bahrain, among other places, which allows security authorities and secret services to intercept, record and analyze large amounts of telephone and computer data. There are further indications that Trovicor’s technologies are designed to facilitate socalled trojans, hacking programs that allow for more far-reaching surveillance and even the manipulation of data. One such invasive program, Gamma’s FinFisher, was found on the computers of Bahraini oppositionists.

Context

The British OECD NCP criticized that Gamma did not put in place a due diligence process and did not commit to any binding standards for the observance of human rights. Moreover, the company did not cooperate with the NCP to the necessary extent. In spite of overwhelming publicly accessible evidence, Gamma refused to provide information on the sale of FinFisher technology to Bahrain.

The NCP invokes that it is not equipped with investigatory powers of its own, and therefore could not confirm this specific accusation. The German NCP, which is tied to the Federal Ministry of Economy, rejected the complaint against Trovicor in December 2013, deciding that it could “only conduct a further examination of the general risk management of Trovicor.” It considered the evidence regarding other topics of the complaint as not substantial enough to warrant further scrutiny.

Quotes

Documents (6)

Partners

Glossary (1)

Definition

OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

The OECD Guidelines for multinational enterprises are recommendations for corporations and governments to promote responsible and sustainable corporate behavior.

The guidelines include recommendations on transparency, labor relations, the environment, corruption, consumer protection, transfer of technology, competition and tax. States adopting the guidelines are obliged to implement them to the best of their ability. They must set up a National Contact Point (NCP) to coordinate the implementation of the guidelines. A complaint may be brought before an NCP in cases of a suspected breach of the guidelines.

Topics (2)

Insight

Double standards

Decision makers in Western democracies often apply double standards when it comes to human rights. While the Global North will condemn and in some cases prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Global South, there is little appetite to examine the role played by Western politicians, military leaders and corporations in crimes against international law. Serious human rights violations committed by Western actors – such as torture, forced disappearances or civilian deaths by drone – are rarely prosecuted. It seems as though different standards apply to human rights abuses, depending on who commits them.

ECCHR undertakes strategic legal interventions to challenge these double standards, to end the impunity of the powerful and to change power structures. ECCHR chooses cases that make political, economic and legal shortcomings visible, in order to force decision-makers in the Global North to question – and ideally, to dismantle – their double standards. 

Map

Discover our Living Open Archive