Spyware Accountability Initiative, with seed funding from Apple and others, announces $4 million in grants

Several philanthropies in partnership with Apple have announced over $4 million in grants through the Spyware Accountability Initiative to address the harms of the global spyware industry on society.

The nearly two dozen organizations supported by these grants will leverage regulation, litigation, and investigation “to ensure that governments and corporations cannot use state-sponsored mercenary spyware to harm or unjustly surveil the civil society organizations that keep them in check.”

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.

The aim of the Spyware Accountability Initiative is to grow a global field of civil society organizations who are advancing threat research, advocacy and accountability to address the use and trade of spyware. Half of the grants announced today support organizations in the Global South. The Initiative’s first wave of grants focuses on three key areas: international advocacy and litigation; investigations and research; and Global South regional field building and organizational strengthening. 

Global North and Global South are terms that denote a method of grouping countries based on their defining characteristics with regard to socioeconomics and politics. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Global South broadly comprises Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia (excluding Israel, Japan, and South Korea), and Oceania (excluding Australia and New Zealand).

Most of the Global South’s countries are commonly identified as lacking in their standard of living, which includes having lower incomes, high levels of poverty, high population growth rates, inadequate housing, limited educational opportunities, and deficient health systems, among other issues