By exploiting technical vulnerabilities of devices such as mobile phones, governments have harassed, surveilled, and threatened targets living abroad. This compromises the physical safety of targets, as well as all the people with whom they communicate. It can leave victims feeling especially vulnerable wherever they are. Digital transnational repression has often had a chilling effect on political criticism more broadly, with individuals self-censoring or changing behavior due to the fear of being reached online. Governments use a range of tactics to digitally repress their nationals abroad, including through control over telecommunications systems or specific applications, or by using spyware. Spyware allows access to all of a user’s data and essentially turns an infected device, such as a mobile phone, into a portable surveillance tool. Once installed, it can provide access to the phone’s contacts, GPS coordinates, camera, microphone, call history, and messages, thus enabling surveillance over the user’s activity and conversations. This type of surveillance puts the affected individual at extreme risk as their location, contacts, communications, passwords, and other contents of their device are available to governments who can use that information to find, threaten, and harm them. There are various companies that make and sell surveillance software to governments. Among the most prominent is Israel-based NSO Group, which created the spyware Pegasus. Pegasus is a highly developed software that can infect mobile phones remotely and unknowingly to the user, often via “zero-click exploits,” meaning the user is infected without them having to click a link or carry out any other action. Among commercial spyware developers, NSO Group and its Pegasus spyware have received the most media attention. Human Rights Watch has also reported on government use of similar software such as FinFisher and Remote Control System (RCS) to surveil individuals living abroad. Human Rights Watch has called for the spyware industry to be properly regulated. In addition to surveillance, governments use the online space to harass or threaten targets. This might take the form of online smear campaigns, which can involve spreading disinformation or highly personal information in the public sphere about the individual to discredit or silence them. It may also take the form of online harassment, for example using digital communication tools to threaten or attack targets directly and out of public view. “WE WILL FIND YOU” 30