Gabriel Geiger

On a Saturday night I stumbled across something on the internet that made me feel like ****** my pants. A giant dataset of real surveillance operations targeting 1000s of people across nearly every country. Unraveling it and the mysterious company behind it has consumed 1.5 years of my life

themaybe.orgREAL Resistance: Against Automated GovernmentsMaria Pilar Llorens, Divij Joshi, Gabriel Geiger, and Purity Mukami reveal how digitised welfare is not welfare — it’s just efficiency theatre.

30 June

Was such a pleasure to speak with @alixdunn.com about automated governance alongside this stellar lineup

Alix Dunn@alixdunn.com

I spoke with @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social, Maria Pilar Llorens, Purity Mukami, and Divij Joshi about the consequences of automated governing in Argentina, Kenya, and India. Catch the conversation here: www.themaybe.org/podcast/real...

Gabriel Geiger reposted

The Maybe

@themaybe.org

30 June

Governments across the Global Majority are trying to tackle tough problems with tech. But instead of creating the oft-promised efficiencies, these tools are delivering deeper inequities–while making them harder to see and challenge.

Soon, when a 15-year-old asylum seeker arrives in the UK, there’s a good chance that a border officer will feed a picture of their face into an AI age estimation tool that will guess whether they are an adult or not. New @lighthousereports.com investigation shows that tool is deeply flawed

lighthousereports.comHow We Analyzed AI Used to Guess Asylum Seekers’ AgesUsing a leaked report and NIST data to audit facial age estimation AI for efficacy and bias.

We found that it classifies more than a 1/3 minors as adults in the best case and more than 2/3 in others. Furthermore, we found that the system was more likely to classify minors from West Africa as adults compared to Europeans. Read our methodology www.lighthousereports.com/methodology/...

It was a pleasure working with the @wired.com @the-independent.com teams, including @regret.bsky.social @mattburgess1.bsky.social, @couts.bsky.social @hollybancroft.bsky.social

independent.co.ukHome Office knew AI age checks for migrants were flawed — but rolled it out anywayExclusive: Government advisors describe the tool as ‘hideously flawed’ amid concern facial age estimation has ‘baked-in racial bias’ — and can wrongly identify a 14-year-old as an adult

The average error for female Sub-Saharan Africans was more than 4.5 years, meaning a 13-year-old could be classified as an adult. @the-independent.com www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

We later found the vendor of the FAE tool, a company called Cognitec. NIST conducts assessments of FAE vendors including Cognitec and publishes the results. We extracted the underlying data and conducted an audit.

Earlier this year, @maybulman.bsky.social caught wind of the Home Office’s plans to deploy FAE to assesses asylum seekers ages, which they claimed would “root out illegal migrants gaming the system by posing as children.”

But she obtained a damming internal Home Office report that showed how the “best performing system” was biased against Sub-Saharan Africans, who were the largest group arriving on small boats in 2025

And that's a huge problem, because that determination has profound consequences, affecting everything from the rights they are afforded to the accommodation they receive while their claim is processed.

wired.comThe UK Will Scan Asylum-Seekers’ Faces for Age Checks—Despite Knowing the Tech Is FlawedInternal Home Office tests of age-verification technology show the risks of life-altering errors. It’s moving forward anyway.

It's hard to imagine a decision with greater stakes. Yet facial age estimation technology (FAE) is mainly used to stop children from buying booze and cigarettes. It’s now being repurposed to make life-changing decisions about children at their most vulnerable @wired.com www.wired.com/story/facial...

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Antonella Napolitano

@svaroschi.bsky.social

lighthousereports.comAsylum by AlgorithmThe UK has turned to AI to determine the age of asylum seekers, and other countries are likely to follow suit. Our investigation finds the technology is deeply unreliable.

Replying to @svaroschi.bsky.social

Incredibly important story by @maybulman.bsky.social and team at @lighthousereports.com with WIRED and The Independent. @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social @mattburgess1.bsky.social @hollybancroft.bsky.social Maddy Varner Sadly, the shape of things to come in the EU www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

youtube.comAI Tanked a National Healthcare System (Here’s How)YouTube video by The Maybe

7 May

It was such a pleasure to speak with @themaybe.org about our new investigation

The Maybe@themaybe.org

What seemed like a shiny technical solution, however, actually made Kenya’s healthcare situation much worse. For this Tech Story of the Week, @alixdunn.com speaks to @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social and Purity Mukami, two journalists who worked together to rebuild the algorithm and test it themselves.

Kenya is using AI that assesses your toilet to set your healthcare bill. I’ve reported on this topic for a long time, across many different countries. None have struck me as this consequential, with stakes so high.

Another person told us about how her premium meant she had to choose between feeding her children or paying for healthcare.

lighthousereports.comHiding Behind AIHow Kenya Used a Predictive Algorithm to Transfer Health Costs onto the Poorest

This has been an enormous team effort. Find all the resulting publications, including a technical methodology here. www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

theguardian.comFlaws in Kenya’s AI-driven health reforms driving up costs for the poorestExclusive: amid unrest, President William Ruto promised to give all Kenyans access to healthcare. But the algorithm favours the rich, an investigation has found

What’s more, a confidential document we obtained showed that the government knew that its model was “inequitable, especially for poor households” but deployed the system regardless. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

The consequences of this on the ground are almost indescribable. A frontline health worker told us people dying because they couldn’t access essential care after being charged premiums that were too high.

What we found was striking: the system overcharges the poorest Kenyans while undercharging the wealthiest.

It’s remarkably crude, using variables like whether your walls are made of dung or plywood, you own a radio, and your level of education to predict your income. Simply having access to electricity, or completing high school can lead to an actually poor household predicted as rich.

To truly understand the system, we had to see inside it. Using access-to-information laws and confidential sources, we secured the training data and underlying formula, as well as a detailed record of how it was built.

With that, we reconstructed the model and audited it, examining how it calculates premiums for actual Kenyan households.

youtube.comERROR BY DESIGN: How SHA's AI system is failing KenyansYouTube video by Africa Uncensored

Early on, we saw signs that this system wasn’t working. Thousands of Kenyans went online to complain about AI-calculated healthcare premiums they could not understand or afford. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ylE...

Yet the government continued to claim that the system was objective and fair. The system was presented as a panacea for achieving universal healthcare, including for the poorest Kenyans.

The Kenyan government is in the midst of a sweeping experiment in using artificial intelligence to determine how much people should pay to access public healthcare.

The centrepiece is an algorithm that predicts how much money the country’s informal workers, the 80 percent of the country who do not have formal income records, earn. They are then charged a proportion of their predicted income.

sha.africauncensored.onlineHiding Behind AIHow SHA Was Used to Load Health System Costs Onto Poorest.

A team of us at @africauncensored.bsky.social @lighthousereports.com @theguardian.com have spent months trying to unravel how this system works. sha.africauncensored.online

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Global Investigative Journalism Network

@gijn.org

24 Mar

In this masterclass video, part of @gijn.org's new #TechFocus, Lighthouse Reports investigative journalist Gabriel Geiger shares practical tips for reporting on how governments use algorithms and AI systems for policing, welfare, & healthcare. Watch the full video ⬇️ https://twp.ai/E6IByA

@simonsaysnothin.bsky.social

10 Mar

Odds that it was vibe-coded with Claude?

This post is unavailable.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Simon Munzert

20 Dec 2025

Replying to @simonsaysnothin.bsky.social

🎅2️⃣0️⃣ Inside the Suspicion Machine, by @evaconstantaras.bsky.social, @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social, @jusbraun.bsky.social, @dmehro.bsky.social, and Htet Aung from @lighthousereports.com in @wired.com www.wired.com/story/welfar...

wired.comInside the Suspicion MachineObscure government algorithms are making life-changing decisions about millions of people around the world. Here, for the first time, we reveal how one of these systems works.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

The Syllabus

@the-syllabus.bsky.social

26 Oct 2025

Unveiling the murky underbelly of the surveillance industry through the lens of First Wap, this investigation critiques how the company navigates regulatory frameworks to sell powerful surveillance tools. By @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social, @lighthousereports.com in @motherjones.com

buff.lyThe surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe youInside the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Dr Abeba Birhane

@abeba.blacksky.app

21 Oct 2025

"The archive contained more than a million tracking operations: efforts to grab real-time locations of thousands of people worldwide. What emerged is one of the most complete pictures to date of the modern surveillance industry."

Gabriel Geiger@gabrielgeiger.bsky.social

We made more than 100 cold calls. Each one began the same way: “You’ve been targeted by government-grade surveillance tech.” In our @lighthousereports.com collab with @revealnews.org, you can hear the voices on the other end. revealnews.org/podcast/cell...

revealnews.orgA young reporter discovers a mysterious trove of data that exposes a global surveillance empire.In a major investigation, a young reporter uncovers a powerful technology used to spy on thousands of people across the world.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Lu Olkowski

@luolkowski.bsky.social

What I’ve been working on… Incredible reporting from @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social and @cr0ft0n.bsky.social at @lighthousereports.com Then, Michael Montgomery @revealnews.org made it into a radio story that I was lucky enough to edit. What a partnership. 14 newsrooms. 😮

Gabriel Geiger@gabrielgeiger.bsky.social

You’ll also hear how First Wap’s executives tracked their own decides as they crisscrossed the globe on an authoritarian sales tour. @rondeibert.bsky.social of @citizenlab.ca describes this as “despotism as a service.”

Incredible to work with the @revealnews.org team on this one, including Michael Montgomery , @luolkowski.bsky.social and @artiscuriskis.bsky.social

@laurinlorenz.bsky.social

Hear from a journalist surveilled while investigating the Vatican, a woman tracked by her stalker, and the daughter of a Rwandan opposition leader targeted in the lead up to his murder.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Laurin Lorenz

youtu.beDie Firma, die dich überall finden kannYouTube video by DER STANDARD

Politiker, Journalist:innen, Dissidenten, aber auch Private wurden jahrelange überwacht - ohne deren Wissen. Die #SurveillanceSecrets Recherchen zeigen den bisher wohl größten bekannten Datensatz aus der Überwachungsbranche - mit vielen Verbindungen nach AT... 1/3 youtu.be/U6vIlLueOPU

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Lighthouse Reports

@lighthousereports.com

15 Oct 2025

🧵What’s the biggest lie the surveillance industry tells? That they only sell to legal clients. That there are red lines. But what do these companies say when they think nobody is watching? We went undercover to find out

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Crofton Black

@cr0ft0n.bsky.social

15 Oct 2025

People often ask what it's like behind the scenes at the world's top spy tech trade fair, ISS World. Turns out it's like this bsky.app/profile/ligh...

Lighthouse Reports@lighthousereports.com

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Mother Jones

@motherjones.com

EXCLUSIVE: This tech has been used to track heads of state, journalists, and maybe even you. @lighthousereports.com uncovered a vast surveillance empire whose untraceable tech has been used to target people in more than 100 countries. It has operated under the radar for decades. Until now.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Dhruv Mehrotra

@dmehro.bsky.social

youtube.comThis Secret Tech Tracked World Leaders, a Vatican Enemy, and Maybe YouYouTube video by Mother Jones

Replying to @dmehro.bsky.social

Come for the incredible reporting, stay for the “I think I felt like shitting my pants or something”: www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfWy...

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Dhruv Mehrotra

@dmehro.bsky.social

motherjones.comThe surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe youInside the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.

Legendary work from @gabrielgeiger.bsky.social. He and a team uncovered a trove of data from a surveillance firm — location data from thousands of phone numbers from nearly every country on Earth. The firm had been tracking everyone from Erik Prince to journalists to Jared Leto.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Ron Deibert

@rondeibert.bsky.social

motherjones.comThe surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe youWe uncovered a massive data trove. It revealed the hidden world of First Wap, whose untraceable tech has targeted politicians, journalists, celebrities, and activists around the globe.

The surveillance empire that tracked world leaders, a Vatican enemy, and maybe you www.motherjones.com/politics/202... A stunning investigation by @lighthousereports.com of what I call "despotism as a service"👇

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Mother Jones

@motherjones.com

EXCLUSIVE: Our friends at @lighthousereports.com obtained a secret data trove. It revealed a vast global surveillance empire whose tech has been used to target politicians, journalists, tech execs, and Jared Leto. The story only gets wilder from there.

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Riccardo Coluccini

@orariccardo.bsky.social

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

Se mesi fa su Google cercavi First Wap, azienda che fa prodotti di sorveglianza da circa 20 anni, trovavi poco—negli ultimi giorni nulla. Oggi con @lighthousereports.com @papertrailmedia.de @irpimedia.eu e altri partner riveliamo tutto #SurveillanceSecrets www.lighthousereports.com/investigatio...

Gabriel Geiger reposted

Lu Olkowski

@luolkowski.bsky.social