The Made in Italy of digital surveillance and spyware

Italy ranks among the most advanced countries in the production of digital surveillance software, particularly spyware—programs capable of infiltrating devices to intercept both in-transit and stored communications on phones and computers. This market remains largely opaque: a tangled web of governments, intelligence agencies, manufacturing companies, export intermediaries, and end-users whose boundaries and true scope are difficult to trace, both in Italy and abroad. Where and against whom Italian spyware is deployed remains a question without a clear answer. Instead, what is growing is the number of documented cases of abuse: covert surveillance operations that are never traced back to any responsible party, frequently directed against journalists. This panel attempts to bring order to what we know about these tools—which represent one of the most severe authoritarian threats to press freedom—and to measure the true depth of our country's involvement.