We live in the age of hyperconnectivity. The internet, smartphones, social media, and messaging apps have given us unprecedented communication capabilities, access to information, and entertainment. But behind this facade of progress and convenience lies an increasingly disturbing world: that of mass surveillance and the constant erosion of our privacy. A phenomenon that is rarely discussed in the mainstream media, except on rare occasions when a scandal involving journalists, politicians, or activists erupts.
Beyond the well-known cases of state or corporate espionage, there is a global, opaque, multi-billion-dollar industry specializing in the development and sale of extremely sophisticated surveillance tools. These companies are often discreet, almost invisible to the general public, but with very powerful clients: governments, intelligence agencies, large corporations, or private investment funds.
A paradigmatic example is Paragon Solutions, an Israeli firm little known to the average citizen, but very active in this sector. It is known to develop surveillance software capable of infiltrating mobile devices without the user's detection. These programs can access messages, calls, location, emails, and even activate microphones and cameras without authorization. The worrying thing is that this technology is not aimed at preventing common crimes or protecting citizens, but rather at serving the interests of actors with political, economic, and geostrategic power.
In 2022, Paragon Solutions was acquired by a private investment fund based in Florida (USA) for approximately $500 million, in a deal that barely generated headlines. Who finances these operations? What geopolitical interests are behind them? To whom are these companies accountable? These are uncomfortable questions that rarely find clear answers.
Every now and then, scandals manage to capture public attention and then fade away. Recently, several Italian journalists were spied on using intrusion tools similar to Pegasus—another notorious Israeli spyware—that infiltrate their victims' phones. As is often the case, the Italian government denied any involvement, while the European Commission issued a formal condemnation.
But beyond these statements, effective investigations that reach the ultimate consequences are rarely undertaken. Networks of interests, the technical difficulty of tracing these attacks, and a lack of political will combine to cause these cases to quickly dissolve.
And although digital surveillance is often presented as a national security issue, the real risk is much broader: it is an issue of fundamental rights. The privacy of millions of citizens is exposed to the whims of private companies, authoritarian governments, or even well-resourced non-state actors. And ordinary citizens, like you and me, can do little but express our powerlessness.
Everyday surveillance is based on disguised consent. Because beyond the top-secret programs used by governments, there is a second level of mass surveillance in which almost all of us voluntarily participate: commercial technology platforms.
Every Google search, every like on Instagram, every location we share on our phones generates a data trail that becomes gold for Big Tech. Our consumer profiles, our political opinions, our daily routines, our social relationships: everything is captured, analyzed, and packaged for sale to the highest bidder, usually advertising companies, investment funds, or predictive analytics firms. And all with our apparent "consent," granted by accepting endless and cryptic privacy policies that few read.
At this second level of surveillance, there's no need for someone to spy on us like some journalists. We ourselves, unconsciously, have fueled a system that already knows much more about us than we imagine. This business model—based on the data economy—has generated financial empires, but at the cost of sacrificing much of our personal privacy.
As a science communicator, I can't help but feel a certain unease. While surveillance technologies advance at a dizzying pace, social awareness of these risks grows much more slowly. International legislation remains very limited, oversight structures insufficient, and the interests at stake too powerful.
It's not a question of falling into catastrophism, but of remaining vigilant. Privacy is not a luxury; it's a basic right. And its gradual, silent, and consensual loss is one of the great ethical challenges of our time.
Perhaps we are not priority targets for surveillance today, but if we accept without protest the continued uncontrolled growth of this industry, tomorrow could be too late for everyone.
Anyway, I have to admit that today I'm having a rather pessimistic day. Sorry.
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