Two Israeli companies have sold mass surveillance technology to Colombia, according to a report that will raise questions over the export and proliferation of snooping systems to countries with patchy human rights records.
The report by Privacy International, a London-based campaigning group, names the Israeli arm of Verint Systems, the Nasdaq-listed security and surveillance company, as having provided technology to
Privacy International also says that Nice Systems, based in Ra’anana in Israel, is helping to build a new system that will allow police to intercept private communications.
The report will spark fresh scrutiny of sales to countries accused of human rights abuses of advanced equipment able to eavesdrop on private citizens’ telephone, email and other communications.
Export controls and other regulations in the countries that produce such equipment, including Israel, have not caught up with similar checks governing the sale of conventional weapons, say campaigners.
“I think clearly there is not enough oversight or human rights criteria put into the assessment process in Israel,” said Edin Omanovic, a researcher with Privacy International. “It’s just another example of the technology and surveillance practices far outstripping the legal framework and any safeguards.”
Israeli companies last year sold more than $6bn worth of cyber security products, surpassing the country’s exports of conventional military hardware for the first time.
While many were commercial products such as anti-hacking software for banks, Israeli companies are also among the leading suppliers of surveillance technology that can be used by police, security forces and other state actors.
Israel’s large military intelligence units have provided the burgeoning sector with large numbers of “graduates” with espionage skills.
In Colombia, evidence of illegal interception of communications pervades accounts of extrajudicial disappearances and killings, according to Privacy International.
Colombia’s long-running conflict with leftwing rebels has killed more than 200,000 people since 1958, most of them civilians, and Amnesty International has accused both sides of violations of human rights and international law.
During the May 2014 election campaign, Colombia saw a scandal involving the wiretapping of peace negotiations between the government and Farc rebels by elements in the security forces and intelligence establishment.
“This investigation finds that the [Colombian] national police, intelligence and security services were and are capable of carrying out interception on a massive scale outside of the existing Colombian legal framework,” the Privacy International report said.
According to the group, Verint supplied Colombia with technology for its Puma surveillance system and an “integrated recording system” used by its police force. Puma intercepts and stores communications transmitted on the backbone of Colombia’s telecoms network.
Nice Systems, in a consortium with the Colombian company Eagle Commercial, supplied Colombian police with the technology to build another system called Super-Puma, allowing police to intercept communications transmitted on “targeted devices or lines”, said the report.
According to Privacy International, Colombia’s police have been building a “shadow interception architecture without clear lawful authority or public scrutiny”.
Elbit Systems, the Israeli defence group, bought Nice’s cyber and intelligence division in May for $158m.
Elbit declined to comment on the report, and Verint did not respond to requests for comment.
Nice said on Sunday that it had sold its intelligence division, and was “no longer in this area of business in Colombia or anywhere else”.
“In line with company policy, Nice is not in a position to comment on its relationships with actual or possible customers, current or past,” the company said. “In the past, such solutions were sold in accordance with applicable laws and appropriate government oversight.”
Privacy International last year named Verint and Nice among the companies supplying spying technology to repressive Central Asian governments, giving them mass access to citizens’ phone calls and internet activity.
At the time, Verint said it only did business with countries with which Israel had commercial ties. Nice did not comment.
According to companies active in the cyber field, Israel’s defence ministry has a strict approval process in place to vet exports of the technology, including a list of countries to which sales are allowed.
However, the ministry declined to comment in response to a request for details of the policy and a list of the approved countries, referring the questions to the National Cyber Bureau in prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The bureau referred the question back to the defence department, which said it could not “comment [on] or publish details regarding defence and cyber exports”.