A surveillance firm banned from Facebook for spying on people has been enlisted by the New Zealand government.
Most of the operations with Cobwebs Technologies are being kept secret, but one government organisation they are working with is Immigration NZ.
Cobwebs was one of seven foreign companies accused in late 2021 by tech giant Meta of setting up fake accounts to spy on almost 50,000 people. The targets included 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,” the report claimed.
Cobwebs was set up in 2015 by ex-Israeli defence special forces members and is now based in New York.
RNZ forced officials in New Zealand to release information about their own dealings with Cobwebs for the first time by appealing to the Ombudsman.
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.
To get the contract, it was required by Immigration NZ to leave no trace behind and totally protect analysts’ identities.
RNZ understands police have trained with Immigration on Cobwebs tools.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment said the Cobwebs operations were legal, closely controlled and vital.
They helped it meet its “legislative responsibilities”, in an undefined but “specific” area where there were active threats, the ministry told RNZ in its OIA response.
Cobwebs’ work is the latest example to come to light in the public sector of an approach known overseas as “surveillance for hire”.
Others include New Zealand Police accessing private CCTV camera footage; and Internal Affairs setting up a master agreement to hire facial recognition services.
Meta, in its investigation into spyware makers, claimed Cobwebs activates counterfeit accounts for its clients that conduct surveillance online.
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