Growing a global field of civil society organizations advancing threat research, advocacy, and accountability to address the use and trade of spyware.
SAI at glance
The Ford Foundation’s Dignity and Justice Fund, fiscally sponsored by the New Venture Fund (NVF), launched the Spyware Accountability Initiative (SAI) to fight the growing threat of spyware proliferation. It was established with a founding contribution by Apple and additional support from Open Society Foundations, Okta for Good, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies. An independent, global technical advisory council advises on the Fund's grantmaking strategy. Grantees of the Dignity and Justice Fund's Spyware Accountability Initiative are recommended by the Fund’s advisory board to the board of New Venture Fund for final approval and grantmaking. Over the next five years, SAI will support a growing community of researchers and advocacy organizations investigating, exposing, and bringing accountability to the global mercenary spyware trade.
Rasha Abdul Rahim, director of Amnesty Tech at Amnesty International
Daniel Bedoya Arroyo, digital security service platform analyst at Access Now
Ron Deibert, professor of political science, and director of The Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto
Ivan Krstić, head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture
Paola Mosso, Co-Executive Director of The Engine Room
Johanna Pruessing, Independent
Advisory Council
In recent years state and non-state actors have used spyware to track and intimidate human rights defenders, political dissidents, and environmental activists, leading to hundreds of acts of physical violence and psychological harm. There is not a single company or piece of malicious software behind these attacks, but a burgeoning and lucrative industry whose footprint extends to virtually every region of the world, and notably the Global South. Half of SAI’s grants support organizations in the Global South.
Addressing the global spyware industry cannot be the work of any one company or funder or government; it requires an approach as interconnected as our world is today. The Spyware Accountability Initiative is a major step towards confronting and neutralizing the threat mercenary spyware poses to human rights defenders, journalists, and dissidents around the globe.