Unveiling the murky underbelly of the surveillance industry through the lens of First Wap, this investigation critiques how the company navigates regulatory frameworks to sell powerful surveillance tools. By @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social, @lighthousereports.com in @motherjones.com

"The archive contained more than a million tracking operations: efforts to grab real-time locations of thousands of people worldwide. What emerged is one of the most complete pictures to date of the modern surveillance industry."

What I’ve been working on… Incredible reporting from @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social and @cr0ft0n.bsky.social at @lighthousereports.com Then, Michael Montgomery @revealnews.org made it into a radio story that I was lucky enough to edit. What a partnership. 14 newsrooms. 😮

We made more than 100 cold calls. Each one began the same way: “You’ve been targeted by government-grade surveillance tech.” In our @lighthousereports.com collab with @revealnews.org, you can hear the voices on the other end. revealnews.org/podcast/cell...

Politiker, Journalist:innen, Dissidenten, aber auch Private wurden jahrelange überwacht - ohne deren Wissen. Die #SurveillanceSecrets Recherchen zeigen den bisher wohl größten bekannten Datensatz aus der Überwachungsbranche - mit vielen Verbindungen nach AT... 1/3 youtu.be/U6vIlLueOPU

🧵What’s the biggest lie the surveillance industry tells? That they only sell to legal clients. That there are red lines. But what do these companies say when they think nobody is watching? We went undercover to find out

People often ask what it's like behind the scenes at the world's top spy tech trade fair, ISS World. Turns out it's like this bsky.app/profile/ligh...

EXCLUSIVE: This tech has been used to track heads of state, journalists, and maybe even you. @lighthousereports.com uncovered a vast surveillance empire whose untraceable tech has been used to target people in more than 100 countries. It has operated under the radar for decades. Until now.

Come for the incredible reporting, stay for the “I think I felt like shitting my pants or something”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfWy...

Legendary work from @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social. He and a team uncovered a trove of data from a surveillance firm — location data from thousands of phone numbers from nearly every country on Earth. The firm had been tracking everyone from Erik Prince to journalists to Jared Leto.

The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you www.motherjones.com/politics/202... A stunning investigation by @lighthousereports.com of what I call "despotism as a service"👇

EXCLUSIVE: Our friends at @lighthousereports.com obtained a secret data trove. It revealed a vast global surveillance empire whose tech has been used to target politicians, journalists, tech execs, and Jared Leto. The story only gets wilder from there.

Se mesi fa su Google cercavi First Wap, azienda che fa prodotti di sorveglianza da circa 20 anni, trovavi poco—negli ultimi giorni nulla. Oggi con @lighthousereports.com @papertrailmedia.de @irpimedia.eu e altri partner riveliamo tutto #SurveillanceSecrets www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Very happy to be bringing this story to @revealnews.org this weekend.

On a Saturday night I stumbled across something on the internet that made me feel like ****** my pants. A giant dataset of real surveillance operations targeting 1000s of people across nearly every country. Unraveling it and the mysterious company behind it has consumed 1.5 years of my life

1/Stop everything and read/watch/bookmark this massive investigation between @motherjones.com @lighthousereports.com Le Monde, Der Spiegel, Paper Trail Media a vast global surveillance empire used to target politicians, journalists, tech CEOs, and... Jared Leto. ow.ly/2LUF50Xb7KE

Said this in the other place and perhaps worth repeating here: this is just such a careful and almost brutally honest analysis of the ways that our efforts to "fix" things at the technical artifact level can fundamentally fall short of making meaningful system wide impact. Lots to learn here.

I’ve spent a lot of time investigating shitty AI cynically used to pursue vulnerable people in welfare systems. When I talk about this work, I invariably get asked: is it possible to make these systems fair?

New from me @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social + Justin-Casimir Braun: Amsterdam believed that it could build a #predictiveAI for welfare fraud that would ALSO be fair, unbiased, & a positive case study for #ResponsibleAI. It didn't work. Our deep dive why: www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/11/1...

Delighted to see this project shortlisted for the Sigma awards alongside a host of other incredible data journalism projects from around the world.

So happy that our project «Inequality for the law» is on the shortlist. 🏆 Lucky to have been collaborating with the talented people at @lighthousereports.com. @elenadebre.bsky.social @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social @jusbraun.bsky.social

The Pulitzer Center and #iMEdD are partnering in a two day AI Spotlight Series in-person training on reporting on AI! We are looking for Southeastern Europe journalists to join coaches @karenhao.bsky.social and @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social in #Greece. Apply now! 👉 bit.ly/AISptSG25

On this episode of #Backlight, award-winning reporters @karenhao.bsky.social and @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social explain how to report on #AI.

The Pulitzer Center, in partnership with #iMEdD, is seeking applications from journalists based in Southeastern Europe to attend a two-day, in-person training program on AI reporting led coaches @karenhao.bsky.social and @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social. Apply now! 👉 bit.ly/AISpotGT2

If you’re a reporter looking to take on AI accountability investigations, consider giving this a listen!

Few people in the algorithmic accountability space come with as unique of a perspective and portfolio as Soizic!

In 2021, I attended the UK’s annual ‘Fighting Public Sector Fraud’ event, whose presenters included Palantir. The host repeatedly warned, in a grave voice, of an impending “tsunami of welfare fraud.”

Norway’s criminal justice system has often received high praise for its equity and fairness; it has rarely been under scrutiny in data-driven criminal justice journalism.

In 2022, Frank went to prison. A richer man convicted of the same crime went free.

The crimes you’re convicted of should determine your punishment, not who you are. But even in Norway – one of the “fairest” criminal justice systems – @lhreports.bsky.social & NRK reveal that there are disparities in sentence length by income and gender www.lighthousereports.com/methodology/...

One of the things I miss about having my work edited by @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social / the Motherboard (now 404) crew was seeing my awful proposed headlines turned into clever, amazing stuff like this www.404media.co/openai-furio...

amazing work by my colleague @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social in a series that exposes the racism built into algorithms used by govt agencies and its real, human consequences.

Serious impact in Sweden where the welfare agency has been called before parliament to answer questions over discriminatory algorithms used to profile benefits recipients www.svd.se/a/63VOxo/eft...

📣 Syrian journalists, artists, architects and activists residing in Europe, this is a chance to attend a free 4 days extensive training in digital investigations techniques with @lhreports.bsky.social in Berlin forms.gle/hwn7S8tXtBx2...

One of the joys of “peer-reviewed” journalism is getting to interact with the academic community in more substantive ways than “I just need a quote.” Eike was incredibly helpful and perspective on ML fairness refreshing — do recommend all interested to read his work.

Amazing work by @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social on the latest @lhreports.bsky.social suspicion machines investigation. This is a crazy tale of AI ethics washing: The welfare agency had been told that it's tool was crappy. It responded by making up a ludicrous fairness definition.

One of the top FOI blunders?

"Hey Anders", I hope you're still keeping a diary. Someone has to keep a record of the publications 🤣

I do a lot of FOIA and I’m used to stonewalling. But Sweden surprised me. After 3 years of telling me no, a high level official at Sweden’s welfare agency Försäkringskassan accidentally left me on cc, writing “Now we must hope that we are done with him.”

I dag berättar jag och @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social i SvD och @lhreports.bsky.social om Försäkringskassans hemliga system för "prediktiv riskanalys" som används för att motverka felaktiga utbetalningar och fusk inom vab. (tråd)

Sweden, the "model of a welfare state", employs a fraud prediction algorithm that discriminates against vulnerable groups. Another episode of welfare surveillance reported by @lhreports.bsky.social with @svenskadagbladet1.bsky.social www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Another month another AI risk assessment story

Ah shit, here we go again

Hello Bluesky friends! We'll be posting here more often going forward In the meantime, sharing a starter pack of current/former staff and contributors to Lighthouse Reports investigations. Will update as we go! go.bsky.app/J6a68Yg