The Surveillance secrets team

The Surveillance secrets team was selected for the 2026 Shortlist with Surveillance secrets.

Trove of surveillance data challenges what we thought we knew about location tracking tools, who they target and how far they have spread

In June 2025, a sharp-suited Austrian executive of one of the world’s most significant yet little-known surveillance companies told a prospective client that he could “go to prison” for organising the deal they were discussing. But the conversation did not end there.

The executive, Günther Rudolph, was seated at a booth at ISS World in Prague, a secretive trade fair for advanced surveillance technology companies. He went on to explain how his firm, First Wap, could provide sophisticated phone-tracking software called Altamides, capable of pinpointing any person in the world. The buyer? A private mining company, owned by an individual under sanction, who intended to use it to surveil environmental protestors. “I think we’re the only ones who can deliver,” Rudolph said.

What Rudolph did not know: he was talking to an undercover reporter.

The road to that conference room in Prague began when a reporter from the international investigative newsroom Lighthouse Reports found a vast archive of data on the deep web. The archive contained evidence of more than a million tracking operations: efforts to grab real-time locations of thousands of people worldwide. Investigating that archive — and First Wap’s activities — drew together more than 80 journalists from 14 media outlets, coordinated by Lighthouse and paper trail media in Germany.

What emerged is one of the most complete pictures to date of the modern surveillance industry. The tracking archive is unprecedented in scope, and reveals how the company and its clients surveilled all types of people from all over the world. Reporters interviewed more than a hundred victims, as well as former employees and industry insiders. A trove of confidential emails and documents provide a detailed inside account of how First Wap’s tech was marketed to authoritarian governments and accessed by corporate actors. Behind closed doors, First Wap’s executives touted their ability to hack WhatsApp accounts, and laughed about evading sanctions.

The surveillance industry has long maintained that its tools are deployed exclusively by government agencies to fight serious crime, portraying instances of misuse as rare exceptions. This investigation definitively dismantles that narrative.

Stories reported by:

Contributors:

Elena Debre – Reporter
Bashar Deeb – Reporter
Tomas Statius – Reporter
Sabrina Slipchenko – Reporter
Sarasvati Nagesh Thuppadolla – Reporter
Tessa Pang – Impact editor
Wael Eskandar – Impact producer
Ariadne Papagapitos – Impact editor
Daniel Howden – Editor
Antonella Napolitano – Impact producer
Dayo Aiyetan – Reporter
Morgan Childs – Audio producer
Abdou Malah – Reporter
Michela Wrong – A veteran writer on Africa
Maria Christoph – Social Media
Dajana Kollig – Factcheck
Frederik Obermaier – Editor
Hakan Tanriverdi – Factcheck
Lorenzo Bodrero – Visuals & Graphics
Henrik Bøe – Reporter
Jim Briggs – Sound Designer & Engineer
Beatrice Cambarau – Social Media & Communication
Olivier Clairouin –
Artis Curiskis – Fact checker
Jörg Diehl – Editor
Benjamin Dyrdal – Photographer
Per Øyvind Fange – Reporter
Verdiana Festa – Social Media & Communication
ZDF Frontal –
Janine Große – Fact Checker
Nadia Hamdan – Audio Producer
Pavla Holcova – Editor
Tobias Holub – Podcaster
Uwe Jürgens – Lawyer
Monika Köstinger – Visuals
Al Letson – Host
Undine Meinke – Visuals
Ruth Murai – Research Editor
Sophie Murgaia – Editor
Christoph Neuwirth – Podcast Producer
Lu Olkowski – Audio Editor
Yosea Arga Pramudita –
Kamila Ramezani –
Daniel Retschitzegger – Podcaster
Morten Rød – Reporter
Lea Rossa – Visuals
Per-Kåre Sandbakk – Photographer
Avi Scharf – Editor
Daniel Schulman – Editor
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak – Editor
Taki Telonidis – Audio Editor
Praga Utama –
Caroline Utti – Visual Graphics
Sam Van Pykeren – Video Producer
Adam Vieira – Art
Anne Vinding – Editor
Swantje Wehr
James West – Producer
Zsolt Wilhelm – Podcaster

The production of this investigation was supported by a grant from the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund.

PUBLICATIONS

Credits: Monika Köstinger (DER STANDARD), Caroline Utti (NRK), Richard Klemm (ZDF)