Four tech executives in France have been indicted after their company’s surveillance technology was used by authoritarian governments in Libya and Egypt to target activists.Philippe Vannier, former chief of Amesys and Nexa Technologies, was charged with complicity in acts of torture by the crimes against humanity and war crimes unit of the Paris Judicial Court, according to a press release from Amnesty International. Olivier Bohbot, head of Nexa Technologies, Renaud Roques, its managing director, and former Nexa president and Amesys commercial director Stéphane Salies were charged with complicity in acts of torture and forced disappearances, according to French media. The indictments resulted from complaints filed by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) against technology companies Amesys and Nexa Technologies after they sold surveillance tools to the Libyan government under Muammar Gadaffi and the Egyptian government under Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. This technology allowed these governments to directly intercept demonstrators’ messages and calls, resulting in their arrests, torture, and sometimes, disappearances, according to the organization. “We hope that this will have a deterrent effect, that this will contribute to stronger regulation,” Clémence Bectarte, attorney and coordinator of the FIDH’s Litigation Action Group, told Motherboard. The FIDH first launched a complaint against Amesys in October 2011 following a Wall Street Journal investigation that revealed that the Gaddafi regime was using deep packet inspection technology from Amesys to target Libyan activists. Years later, the FIDH filed a second complaint after French magazine Télérama revealed that Amesys commercial director Salies had also sold surveillance technology to Egypt in 2014 after creating two new companies (Nexa Technologies and Advanced Middle East Systems, or AMESys) and buying the rights to Amesys's original IP to continue selling it under a new name. Five Libyan protesters testified in 2014 about being arrested and tortured after they were targeted using electronic communications. Another protester who testified during the proceedings in 2015 described being arrested and tortured in late 2009, which suggests that the Amesys surveillance technology was being used by the Libyan government as early as then, according to FIDH.Bectarte described the regulations that are currently in place against selling surveillance technology overseas as “easily disregarded” and insufficiently implemented when “there is a massive risk that they would contribute to human rights violations,” Bectarte said.The investigating judges still must decide whether to send the case to trial before a criminal court, but this indictment sets a new precedent for holding companies that sell surveillance technology to governments and law enforcement accountable. “These indictments send a clear message to surveillance companies that they are not above the law, and could face criminal accountability for their actions,” Rasha Abdul Rahim, tech director at Amnesty International, said in a statement. “When left unchecked, the activities of surveillance companies can facilitate grave human rights violations and repression, including the crimes of torture and enforced disappearance.”
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