Statement: End complicity with ISS World Europe
ISS World Europe is an annual surveillance industry trade fair where the most invasive technologies for mass surveillance, data harvesting and tracking of individuals are traded and promoted. Such a marketplace for digital repression tools, connected to companies directly involved in war crimes, human rights violations, and the genocide in Gaza, should have no place in the EU. Civil society is calling on the EU to immediately cut ties with ISS World Europe.
Civil society calls on EU institutions, governments, universities and other stakeholders to stop supporting ISS World Europe
Civil society organisations are urgently calling on the EU Commission, EU agencies, EU Member State governments, public institutions, civil servants and elected officials to refrain from participating in, endorsing, sponsoring, or legitimising the upcoming ISS World Europe Conference, scheduled to take place at the Clarion Hotel in Prague on 2–4 June 2026. They are also calling on European universities, law enforcement agencies and or any other stakeholders to stop any partnerships, investments, or other forms of support in relation to the event and its participants.
Why is civil society calling for an immediate cut of ties with ISS World Europe?
ISS World Europe is a closed, annual, invitation-only surveillance industry conference where state agencies and private companies trade and promote invasive technologies for mass monitoring, data harvesting and tracking of individuals. It functions as a marketplace for spyware and other digital repression tools that are associated with the targeting and human rights violations of journalists, activists, migrants, and political opponents.
This event normalises and accelerates the spread of technologies linked to serious human rights abuses and the erosion of privacy in both authoritarian and democratic states. It does so by hosting many companies that are directly involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity and the Gaza genocide, such as the NSO Group, BAE Systems, Elbit Systems, Cellebrite, and more.
This event is able to take place because of the EU’s tolerance and permissiveness towards an out-of-control surveillance market. The EU is also responsible for creating favourable conditions for the growing defence tech market due to the lack of regulations and its funding of spyware firms.
It is crucial to draw a line against the normalisation of spyware and EU Member States’ complicity in human rights violations across the globe. This measures would also send a strong message that companies complicit in the perpetration of a genocide have no place in the EU’s market.