company:illumina

  • New report exposes global reach of powerful governments who equip, finance and train other countries to spy on their populations

    Privacy International has today released a report that looks at how powerful governments are financing, training and equipping countries — including authoritarian regimes — with surveillance capabilities. The report warns that rather than increasing security, this is entrenching authoritarianism.

    Countries with powerful security agencies are spending literally billions to equip, finance, and train security and surveillance agencies around the world — including authoritarian regimes. This is resulting in entrenched authoritarianism, further facilitation of abuse against people, and diversion of resources from long-term development programmes.

    The report, titled ‘Teach ’em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance’ is available to download here.

    Examples from the report include:

    In 2001, the US spent $5.7 billion in security aid. In 2017 it spent over $20 billion [1]. In 2015, military and non-military security assistance in the US amounted to an estimated 35% of its entire foreign aid expenditure [2]. The report provides examples of how US Departments of State, Defense, and Justice all facilitate foreign countries’ surveillance capabilities, as well as an overview of how large arms companies have embedded themselves into such programmes, including at surveillance training bases in the US. Examples provided include how these agencies have provided communications intercept and other surveillance technology, how they fund wiretapping programmes, and how they train foreign spy agencies in surveillance techniques around the world.

    The EU and individual European countries are sponsoring surveillance globally. The EU is already spending billions developing border control and surveillance capabilities in foreign countries to deter migration to Europe. For example, the EU is supporting Sudan’s leader with tens of millions of Euros aimed at capacity building for border management. The EU is now looking to massively increase its expenditure aimed at building border control and surveillance capabilities globally under the forthcoming Multiannual Financial Framework, which will determine its budget for 2021–2027. Other EU projects include developing the surveillance capabilities of security agencies in Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Somalia, Iraq and elsewhere. European countries such as France, Germany, and the UK are sponsoring surveillance worldwide, for example, providing training and equipment to “Cyber Police Officers” in Ukraine, as well as to agencies in Saudi Arabia, and across Africa.

    Surveillance capabilities are also being supported by China’s government under the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ and other efforts to expand into international markets. Chinese companies have reportedly supplied surveillance capabilities to Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador [3]. In Ecuador, China Electronics Corporation supplied a network of cameras — including some fitted with facial recognition capabilities — to the country’s 24 provinces, as well as a system to locate and identify mobile phones.

    Edin Omanovic, Privacy International’s Surveillance Programme Lead, said

    “The global rush to make sure that surveillance is as universal and pervasive as possible is as astonishing as it is disturbing. The breadth of institutions, countries, agencies, and arms companies that are involved shows how there is no real long-term policy or strategic thinking driving any of this. It’s a free-for-all, where capabilities developed by some of the world’s most powerful spy agencies are being thrown at anyone willing to serve their interests, including dictators and killers whose only goal is to cling to power.

    “If these ‘benefactor’ countries truly want to assist other countries to be secure and stable, they should build schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, and promote democracy and human rights. This is what communities need for safety, security, and prosperity. What we don’t need is powerful and wealthy countries giving money to arms companies to build border control and surveillance infrastructure. This only serves the interests of those powerful, wealthy countries. As our report shows, instead of putting resources into long-term development solutions, such programmes further entrench authoritarianism and spur abuses around the world — the very things which cause insecurity in the first place.”

    https://privacyinternational.org/press-release/2161/press-release-new-report-exposes-global-reach-powerful-governm

    #surveillance #surveillance_de_masse #rapport

    Pour télécharger le rapport “Teach ’em to Phish: State Sponsors of Surveillance”:
    https://privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/2018-07/Teach-em-to-Phish-report.pdf

    ping @fil

    • China Uses DNA to Track Its People, With the Help of American Expertise

      The Chinese authorities turned to a Massachusetts company and a prominent Yale researcher as they built an enormous system of surveillance and control.

      The authorities called it a free health check. Tahir Imin had his doubts.

      They drew blood from the 38-year-old Muslim, scanned his face, recorded his voice and took his fingerprints. They didn’t bother to check his heart or kidneys, and they rebuffed his request to see the results.

      “They said, ‘You don’t have the right to ask about this,’” Mr. Imin said. “‘If you want to ask more,’ they said, ‘you can go to the police.’”

      Mr. Imin was one of millions of people caught up in a vast Chinese campaign of surveillance and oppression. To give it teeth, the Chinese authorities are collecting DNA — and they got unlikely corporate and academic help from the United States to do it.

      China wants to make the country’s Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, more subservient to the Communist Party. It has detained up to a million people in what China calls “re-education” camps, drawing condemnation from human rights groups and a threat of sanctions from the Trump administration.

      Collecting genetic material is a key part of China’s campaign, according to human rights groups and Uighur activists. They say a comprehensive DNA database could be used to chase down any Uighurs who resist conforming to the campaign.

      Police forces in the United States and elsewhere use genetic material from family members to find suspects and solve crimes. Chinese officials, who are building a broad nationwide database of DNA samples, have cited the crime-fighting benefits of China’s own genetic studies.

      To bolster their DNA capabilities, scientists affiliated with China’s police used equipment made by Thermo Fisher, a Massachusetts company. For comparison with Uighur DNA, they also relied on genetic material from people around the world that was provided by #Kenneth_Kidd, a prominent #Yale_University geneticist.

      On Wednesday, #Thermo_Fisher said it would no longer sell its equipment in Xinjiang, the part of China where the campaign to track Uighurs is mostly taking place. The company said separately in an earlier statement to The New York Times that it was working with American officials to figure out how its technology was being used.

      Dr. Kidd said he had been unaware of how his material and know-how were being used. He said he believed Chinese scientists were acting within scientific norms that require informed consent by DNA donors.

      China’s campaign poses a direct challenge to the scientific community and the way it makes cutting-edge knowledge publicly available. The campaign relies in part on public DNA databases and commercial technology, much of it made or managed in the United States. In turn, Chinese scientists have contributed Uighur DNA samples to a global database, potentially violating scientific norms of consent.

      Cooperation from the global scientific community “legitimizes this type of genetic surveillance,” said Mark Munsterhjelm, an assistant professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario who has closely tracked the use of American technology in Xinjiang.

      Swabbing Millions

      In Xinjiang, in northwestern China, the program was known as “#Physicals_for_All.”

      From 2016 to 2017, nearly 36 million people took part in it, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency. The authorities collected DNA samples, images of irises and other personal data, according to Uighurs and human rights groups. It is unclear whether some residents participated more than once — Xinjiang has a population of about 24.5 million.

      In a statement, the Xinjiang government denied that it collects DNA samples as part of the free medical checkups. It said the DNA machines that were bought by the Xinjiang authorities were for “internal use.”

      China has for decades maintained an iron grip in Xinjiang. In recent years, it has blamed Uighurs for a series of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, including a 2013 incident in which a driver struck two people in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

      In late 2016, the Communist Party embarked on a campaign to turn the Uighurs and other largely Muslim minority groups into loyal supporters. The government locked up hundreds of thousands of them in what it called job training camps, touted as a way to escape poverty, backwardness and radical Islam. It also began to take DNA samples.

      In at least some of the cases, people didn’t give up their genetic material voluntarily. To mobilize Uighurs for the free medical checkups, police and local cadres called or sent them text messages, telling them the checkups were required, according to Uighurs interviewed by The Times.

      “There was a pretty strong coercive element to it,” said Darren Byler, an anthropologist at the University of Washington who studies the plight of the Uighurs. “They had no choice.”

      Calling Dr. Kidd

      Kenneth Kidd first visited China in 1981 and remained curious about the country. So when he received an invitation in 2010 for an expenses-paid trip to visit Beijing, he said yes.

      Dr. Kidd is a major figure in the genetics field. The 77-year-old Yale professor has helped to make DNA evidence more acceptable in American courts.

      His Chinese hosts had their own background in law enforcement. They were scientists from the Ministry of Public Security — essentially, China’s police.

      During that trip, Dr. Kidd met Li Caixia, the chief forensic physician of the ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science. The relationship deepened. In December 2014, Dr. Li arrived at Dr. Kidd’s lab for an 11-month stint. She took some DNA samples back to China.

      “I had thought we were sharing samples for collaborative research,” said Dr. Kidd.

      Dr. Kidd is not the only prominent foreign geneticist to have worked with the Chinese authorities. Bruce Budowle, a professor at the University of North Texas, says in his online biography that he “has served or is serving” as a member of an academic committee at the ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science.

      Jeff Carlton, a university spokesman, said in a statement that Professor Budowle’s role with the ministry was “only symbolic in nature” and that he had “done no work on its behalf.”

      “Dr. Budowle and his team abhor the use of DNA technology to persecute ethnic or religious groups,” Mr. Carlton said in the statement. “Their work focuses on criminal investigations and combating human trafficking to serve humanity.”

      Dr. Kidd’s data became part of China’s DNA drive.

      In 2014, ministry researchers published a paper describing a way for scientists to tell one ethnic group from another. It cited, as an example, the ability to distinguish Uighurs from Indians. The authors said they used 40 DNA samples taken from Uighurs in China and samples from other ethnic groups from Dr. Kidd’s Yale lab.

      In patent applications filed in China in 2013 and 2017, ministry researchers described ways to sort people by ethnicity by screening their genetic makeup. They took genetic material from Uighurs and compared it with DNA from other ethnic groups. In the 2017 filing, researchers explained that their system would help in “inferring the geographical origin from the DNA of suspects at crime scenes.”

      For outside comparisons, they used DNA samples provided by Dr. Kidd’s lab, the 2017 filing said. They also used samples from the 1000 Genomes Project, a public catalog of genes from around the world.

      Paul Flicek, member of the steering committee of the 1000 Genomes Project, said that its data was unrestricted and that “there is no obvious problem” if it was being used as a way to determine where a DNA sample came from.

      The data flow also went the other way.

      Chinese government researchers contributed the data of 2,143 Uighurs to the Allele Frequency Database, an online search platform run by Dr. Kidd that was partly funded by the United States Department of Justice until last year. The database, known as Alfred, contains DNA data from more than 700 populations around the world.

      This sharing of data could violate scientific norms of informed consent because it is not clear whether the Uighurs volunteered their DNA samples to the Chinese authorities, said Arthur Caplan, the founding head of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s School of Medicine. He said that “no one should be in a database without express consent.”

      “Honestly, there’s been a kind of naïveté on the part of American scientists presuming that other people will follow the same rules and standards wherever they come from,” Dr. Caplan said.

      Dr. Kidd said he was “not particularly happy” that the ministry had cited him in its patents, saying his data shouldn’t be used in ways that could allow people or institutions to potentially profit from it. If the Chinese authorities used data they got from their earlier collaborations with him, he added, there is little he can do to stop them.

      He said he was unaware of the filings until he was contacted by The Times.

      Dr. Kidd also said he considered his collaboration with the ministry to be no different from his work with police and forensics labs elsewhere. He said governments should have access to data about minorities, not just the dominant ethnic group, in order to have an accurate picture of the whole population.

      As for the consent issue, he said the burden of meeting that standard lay with the Chinese researchers, though he said reports about what Uighurs are subjected to in China raised some difficult questions.

      “I would assume they had appropriate informed consent on the samples,” he said, “though I must say what I’ve been hearing in the news recently about the treatment of the Uighurs raises concerns.”
      Machine Learning

      In 2015, Dr. Kidd and Dr. Budowle spoke at a genomics conference in the Chinese city of Xi’an. It was underwritten in part by Thermo Fisher, a company that has come under intense criticism for its equipment sales in China, and Illumina, a San Diego company that makes gene sequencing instruments. Illumina did not respond to requests for comment.

      China is ramping up spending on health care and research. The Chinese market for gene-sequencing equipment and other technologies was worth $1 billion in 2017 and could more than double in five years, according to CCID Consulting, a research firm. But the Chinese market is loosely regulated, and it isn’t always clear where the equipment goes or to what uses it is put.

      Thermo Fisher sells everything from lab instruments to forensic DNA testing kits to DNA mapping machines, which help scientists decipher a person’s ethnicity and identify diseases to which he or she is particularly vulnerable. China accounted for 10 percent of Thermo Fisher’s $20.9 billion in revenue, according to the company’s 2017 annual report, and it employs nearly 5,000 people there.

      “Our greatest success story in emerging markets continues to be China,” it said in the report.

      China used Thermo Fisher’s equipment to map the genes of its people, according to five Ministry of Public Security patent filings.

      The company has also sold equipment directly to the authorities in Xinjiang, where the campaign to control the Uighurs has been most intense. At least some of the equipment was intended for use by the police, according to procurement documents. The authorities there said in the documents that the machines were important for DNA inspections in criminal cases and had “no substitutes in China.”

      In February 2013, six ministry researchers credited Thermo Fisher’s Applied Biosystems brand, as well as other companies, with helping to analyze the DNA samples of Han, Uighur and Tibetan people in China, according to a patent filing. The researchers said understanding how to differentiate between such DNA samples was necessary for fighting terrorism “because these cases were becoming more difficult to crack.”

      The researchers said they had obtained 95 Uighur DNA samples, some of which were given to them by the police. Other samples were provided by Uighurs voluntarily, they said.

      Thermo Fisher was criticized by Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and others who asked the Commerce Department to prohibit American companies from selling technology to China that could be used for purposes of surveillance and tracking.

      On Wednesday, Thermo Fisher said it would stop selling its equipment in Xinjiang, a decision it said was “consistent with Thermo Fisher’s values, ethics code and policies.”

      “As the world leader in serving science, we recognize the importance of considering how our products and services are used — or may be used — by our customers,” it said.

      Human rights groups praised Thermo Fisher’s move. Still, they said, equipment and information flows into China should be better monitored, to make sure the authorities elsewhere don’t send them to Xinjiang.

      “It’s an important step, and one hopes that they apply the language in their own statement to commercial activity across China, and that other companies are assessing their sales and operations, especially in Xinjiang,” said Sophie Richardson, the China director of Human Rights Watch.

      American lawmakers and officials are taking a hard look at the situation in Xinjiang. The Trump administration is considering sanctions against Chinese officials and companies over China’s treatment of the Uighurs.

      China’s tracking campaign unnerved people like Tahir Hamut. In May 2017, the police in the city of Urumqi in Xinjiang drew the 49-year-old Uighur’s blood, took his fingerprints, recorded his voice and took a scan of his face. He was called back a month later for what he was told was a free health check at a local clinic.

      Mr. Hamut, a filmmaker who is now living in Virginia, said he saw between 20 to 40 Uighurs in line. He said it was absurd to think that such frightened people had consented to submit their DNA.

      “No one in this situation, not under this much pressure and facing such personal danger, would agree to give their blood samples for research,” Mr. Hamut said. “It’s just inconceivable.”

      https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/business/china-xinjiang-uighur-dna-thermo-fisher.html?action=click&module=MoreInSect
      #USA #Etats-Unis #ADN #DNA #Ouïghours #université #science #génétique #base_de_données

  • #Business, #éthique, #légalité... Le #séquençage de l’#ADN en questions
    Le Monde.fr | 18.08.2014 à 13h21 • Mis à jour le 18.08.2014 à 14h29 |
    Par Alexandre Léchenet
    http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2014/08/18/le-sequencage-du-genome-comment-ca-marche_4472313_4355770.html

    Illumina, une société américaine, propose de séquencer le #génome des humains pour 1 000 dollars, comme l’explique son président dans une interview au Monde (lien abonnés). Un procédé qui nécessite aujourd’hui quelques heures de calculs, pour un coût très modique, suscitant de nombreuses interrogations scientifiques et éthiques. En 2003, le premier séquençage complet avait coûté 2,7 millliards de dollars. Ce séquençage permet notamment aux particuliers de prévenir certaines maladies génétiques ou prédispositions à des maladies.

    Qu’est-ce que l’ADN ?
    L’acide désoxyribonucléique (ADN) est présent dans chaque cellule vivante. Cette molécule a la forme d’une double hélice. L’ensemble de l’ADN dans une cellule rassemble toute l’information permettant à l’organisme qui la contient de se développer et de se gérer.

    L’ADN est constitué de quatre molécules différentes – appelées bases : l’adénine, la thymine, la guanine et la cytosine (les lettres A, T, G, C) – qui s’assemblent deux à deux. Une suite particulière de ces couples de protéines forment un gène, la base de l’information pour chaque caractéristique de l’organisme.

    700 MO
    L’ADN est organisé en différents chromosomes, dont le nombre varie en fonction des espèces. Chez l’humain, il y en a 23 paires. A titre de comparaison, la pomme de terre possède 48 chromosomes et le moustique, six. L’ADN humain est composé de trois milliards de paires de bases, soit environ 700 mégaoctets d’informations. Autant de données qu’un film compressé ou qu’un bon vieux CD-rom. On estime aujourd’hui le nombre de gènes à 50 000 chez les humains. Ces gènes peuvent être codants, c’est à dire qu’ils sont à l’origine d’une caractéristique ou non codants. Les gènes non-codants semblent néanmoins nécessaires à l’organisation du génôme.

    Qu’est-ce que le séquençage ?
    L’ensemble de l’information contenue dans l’ADN est appelé génome. Le séquençage est la lecture de la succession des lettres qui constituent le génome. Il permet de regarder des gènes ou des morceaux de gènes, ou la totalité du génome.

    Pour réaliser ce séquençage, on extrait l’ADN d’un échantillon biologique : un cheveu, de la salive, du sang, etc. On place cet ADN dans une machine spéciale, un séquenceur, qui déchiffre l’ADN. Ensuite, cet ADN est comparé avec le génome de référence de l’humain pour l’organiser. En effet, seul 0,1 % du génome varie d’un humain à un autre. C’est cette liste de différences qui servira de base à l’identification.

    Comment le coût du séquençage a-t-il évolué ?
    2,7 MILLIARDS
    Le premier séquençage, le projet Génome humain, financé par des fonds publics, a duré près de quinze ans et coûté 2,7 milliards de dollars (2 milliards d’euros). Il s’est terminé en avril 2003, grâce à plusieurs donneurs différents. En mai 2007, pour la première fois, le génome humain d’un seul individu est entièrement séquencé. Il s’agit de celui de James Watson, biologiste à l’origine de la découverte de la structure de l’ADN avec Francis Crick.

    Le coût du séquençage n’a ensuite cessé de diminuer, pour atteindre récemment 1 000 dollars (750 euros), facilitant l’accès au séquençage complet à une part plus importante de la population. En 2013, il se réalisait en quelques heures seulement. Par ailleurs, il est également possible de faire des séquençages non pas sur l’ensemble du génôme, mais sur un nombre ciblé de gènes. Ces séquençages sont donc moins coûteux.

    Parallèlement, des projets de séquençage génomiques de populations plus larges ont été lancés. Ainsi, au Royaume-Uni, le projet Genomic England prévoit de séquencer les génomes de 100 000 Britanniques, dont une importante partie souffre de maladies héréditaires ou de cancers. L’institut génomique de Pékin répertorie de son côté le génome de « surdoués », dont le QI dépasse 160. Le biologiste américain Craig Venter, à la tête d’une entreprise privée qui a également réalisé un séquençage global, recense de son côté les gènes de la longévité.

    Quel est l’intérêt du séquençage ?
    Le premier séquençage finalisé en 2003 a notamment servi de base de comparaison aux suivants. Il a permis d’identifier les gènes humains et de les cartographier. Le séquençage permet de comprendre et de poser un diagnostic, mais également d’identifier des mutations génétiques.

    Aujourd’hui, le séquençage peut être réalisé pour des individus ou des fœtus. Il permet d’identifier une mutation ou un gène impliqué dans une maladie. Il permet également d’évaluer les prédispositions génétiques d’une personne pour certaines maladies ou d’en savoir plus sur sa « généalogie génétique ».

    Des entreprises proposent des analyses génétiques ciblées. Mais demain, elles pourraient, en proposant un séquençage intégral, constituer des bases de données sur les gènes de leurs clients, permettant de mener des projets de recherche, ou éventuellement d’être vendues à des laboratoires.

    La découverte de gènes à l’origine de maladies peut justifier un suivi médical particulier, ou des opérations préventives, comme la mastectomie en prévention d’un cancer du sein, médiatisée par l’actrice Angelina Jolie. Mais qu’est-ce que cela changera de se savoir prédisposé à Alzheimer, maladie pour laquelle il n’existe aucun traitement préventif ?

    Et sur les fœtus et les embryons ?
    Le séquençage chez le fœtus, dont une partie de l’ADN circule dans le sang de la mère, permet d’éviter l’amniocentèse et de dépister certaines maladies et mutations génétiques, comme la trisomie 21. Ce type de diagnostic prénatal peut même être réalisé avant l’implantation de l’embryon dans l’utérus.

    Ce séquençage pose d’importantes questions éthiques. En mars 2014, dans Le Monde, Laurent Alexandre, président de DNAvision, expliquait que les séquençages seront bientôt accessibles facilement en début de grossesse. « Le séquençage intégral de l’ADN de l’enfant va bouleverser notre rapport à la procréation, puisque des milliers de maladies pourront être dépistées systématiquement pendant la grossesse », s’alarme-t-il, mettant en garde contre un « toboggan eugéniste ».

    Est-ce possible en France ?
    En France, il est illégal pour un particulier de demander son séquençage génomique. Le code civil, modifié par la loi de bioéthique de 2004, stipule que « l’’examen des caractéristiques génétiques d’une personne ne peut être entrepris qu’à des fins médicales ou de recherche scientifique », ainsi que pour les enquêtes criminelles ou la recherche de paternité. Le code de la santé publique ajoute que cet examen médical ne peut être effectué que par « des praticiens agréés à cet effet par l’Agence de la biomédecine ». De plus, les tests en France ne sont possibles que lorsqu’ils ciblent une maladie ou une mutation spécifique.

    Sur la question du diagnostic fœtal, le Comité national d’éthique s’inquiète de « la stigmatisation du handicap et de son poids économique et social, du relatif rejet de la différence, voire de l’affirmation d’un "droit" à la bonne santé de l’enfant à naître », qui pourraient encourager les parents à utiliser les outils de diagnostic génétique « sans discernement ». Le comité préconise également que les tests prénataux soient décidés selon plusieurs critères, « au premier rang desquels devraient figurer la particulière gravité et l’incurabilité de la maladie au moment du diagnostic ».

  • Le #conspirationnisme : danger et impasse d’une critique sociale - Coordination des Groupes Anarchistes
    http://www.c-g-a.org/?q=content/le-conspirationnisme-danger-et-impasse-dune-critique-sociale

    Les théories conspirationnistes sont de retour, notamment sur Internet. Il faut constater que les sites et vidéos de théorie du complot fleurissent sur internet et ont de l’écho. Même si les théories du complot ont toujours existé, elles ont su s’adapter à ce nouveau média et toucher une population assez large. Il n’est plus rare de constater les relents « conspi » de certains discours en manifestation. Même à Saint-Imier, aux rencontres internationales anarchistes, quelques personnes faisaient part de leur volonté de parler du groupe de Bilderberg ou de la commission trilatérale, comme « LE » sujet dont il faut parler, dépassant en importance tous les autres. Dans le rap français aussi, on trouve des textes reprenant pleinement les thèses conspirationnistes : par exemple Rockin’ Squat (ancien membre du groupe Assassin) et Keny Arkana, deux artistes renommé·e·s et politisé·e·s, qui n’ont pas hésité à « dénoncer » les Illuminati, groupe secret qui comploterait pour dominer le monde. Les théories du complot sont souvent associées à l’antisémitisme, le racisme et la haine de l’autre, on imagine une sorte de fantasme qui permet de justifier un État fort, autoritaire, fasciste pour s’attaquer à un bouc émissaire. Historiquement les succès des théories du complot ont toujours permis l’expansion des thèses d’extrême-droite et pourtant, ceux et celles qui portent ce discours ne sont pas toujours de mauvaise foi. C’est pourquoi il nous parait important de réagir, de proposer un discours politique sur ce sujet afin de mettre en garde contre cette façon de raisonner. Il faut pour cela connaître et identifier ce type de propos et ensuite analyser les pièges dans lesquels il ne faut pas tomber.

    @bug_in