Police around the world are receiving special training from a well-known European Union service to better monitor the iPhone and Apple devices in general, according to documents was released Privacy International.
The archives reveal that CEPOL, an EU law enforcement agency, instructed officers around the world, from Europe to Africa, on how to use malware and other tools. These tools can be used to access citizens' phones and monitor social networks. In some cases, the training was financed by EU funds and went to countries with a history of human rights violations, as reported by Privacy International.
Outraged at past secretive initiatives for surveillance rather than protecting people from it, Privacy International and other human rights organizations are calling for immediate reform, demanding that money earmarked for hacking training be diverted to more altruistic programs.
The revelations came days after the European Parliament announced plans to curb exports of espionage tools that could be used for human rights abuses.
European Parliament MEP Markéta Gregorová, who helped set up EU reforms covering surveillance tool exports, told Forbes:
"We just made it much harder to export cyber surveillance tools and it is unacceptable that our law enforcement agencies are training dictators to spy on their people and even suggest surveillance software. This is unacceptable and incompatible with our values and actions for reform. "