Report: How visa outsourcing firm VFS 'exploits' applicants through value-added services A recent report by Lighthouse Reports has alleged that @VFSGlobal, a visa outsourcing company, pressures visa applicants into paying for optional add-on services. Published in collaboration with 14 media organisations, the report said the findings were based on a year-long investigation involving hundreds of internal European Union documents obtained through freedom of information requests, financial statements, analyses of customer receipts, and interviews with former VFS employees. thecable.ng/report-how-visa-…

Anyone who has travelled on a weak passport will celebrate investigative reporting into VFS global, the near monopoly intermediary that handles visa applications for 71 countries. lighthousereports.com/invest…

Former LSK President has criticised the AI-driven Social Health Authority system saying it is overcharging low-income Kenyans while undercharging the wealthy.

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, life and death even. sha.africauncensored.online/

According to Reporters Without Borders, Israel accounted for almost half of the world's journalist deaths this year. It says Israel has now been the deadliest country for journalists for three consecutive years.

I reported this story and have been working around the clock since Saturday to cover the deaths and obtain definitive evidence so that we can confidently assign responsibility. We've been reviewing photos of the dust covered bodies of children and verifying their names against the names scrawled on little coffins. We've been debunking false claims about the attack and that the harrowing cemetery photo isn't real. And while it appeared obvious to many early on that the U.S. or Israel hit the school, it takes days to sift through, pinpoint and analyze the evidence. It took four days before a new satellite image we ordered came through so we could confidently assess the damage and the types of weapons used. All that reporting and cross checking and the production of the visuals showing it takes time. But it ultimately allows us to more confidently assert U.S. responsibility, explain our rationale and add to the body of reporting that officials should be challenged with. It's easy to critique a headline, and I agree language matters, but you diminish the reporting. We're not justifying anything, we're stating where the reporting points responsibility, and quoting legal experts on the laws of armed conflict. Here's a gift link nytimes.com/2026/03/05/world…

“The homecoming was but an exceptional experience. I had lost hope that I would be able to to visit Syria again.” This month on #Backlight, we speak to Syrian journalists Bashar Deeb and Mais Katt about their first investigation in a newly free Syria. Listen to the episode here: lighthousereports.com/what-i…

No one familiar with Paul Kagame's preferred methods will be surprised to learn Rwanda was a client of First Wap, a company which operated for years quietly under the radar, selling phone tracking technology. motherjones.com/politics/202…

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

So there’s a surveillance company you’ve never heard of working in almost every country in the world. Our team @LHreports got the full story

Excellent thread that helps place the push for digital IDs in the context of corruption and totalitarianism

INSIDE THE TONY BLAIR INSTITUTE with @LHreports, @PeterKGeoghegan and @maybulman Since 2021, Larry Ellison’s personal foundation – the Larry Ellison Foundation – has donated or pledged at least £257m to the Tony Blair Institute, making it a think tank like no other in the UK. Ellison donations have helped it grow to more than 900 staff, working in at least 45 countries. Speak to anyone close to Tony Blair and they will confirm his conviction in the revolutionary potential of AI. The former prime minister believes it will completely reshape the global economy in ways that political leaders the world over are only just starting to realise. But it is also the case that Ellison’s Oracle has major commercial interests at stake in the question of which companies get access to Britain’s most valuable data. In the course of our investigation into the TBI, we spoke to 29 current and former staff, most on condition of anonymity. While there is no suggestion of illegality, there are growing concerns about the extent to which the interests of a US tech billionaire are being represented by the former prime minister. Some TBI staff – including a number who left in recent years because of Ellison’s influence – say the cash injection has produced a culture that is dominated by a form of AI boosterism, and which, as they see it, amounts to lobbying for Oracle. The TBI, however, was welcomed by Keir Starmer’s Downing Street operation, which includes many figures with close connections to the former prime minister. Peter Kyle, an adviser in Blair’s second term, was appointed technology secretary and called on governments to show “a sense of humility” towards Big Tech companies. In an August 2024 paper on “preparing the NHS for the AI era”, TBI found “good reasons” for building new digital health records with an existing system run by Oracle.

Glad to have got this over the line How Tony Blair is lobbying on behalf of Big Tech His Institute (TBI) is pushing AI solutionism on Starmer’s govt, which is embracing it w open arms, w TBI donor & tech billionaire Larry Ellison set to reap the benefits newstatesman.com/politics/20…

Revealed: How Tony Blair is lobbying on behalf of tech billionaire Larry Ellison We expose former PM’s unprecedented influence over the UK govt & how this is shaped by the interests of his Institute’s largest donor & one of the world’s richest men newstatesman.com/politics/20… Thread

One of the most important stories we've covered. Extraordinary detail in this thread

It was economist Adam Smith who warned of an “invisible hand” manipulating rules and building monopolies in the 18thC. He’d recognise the phenomenon in the way that Big Tech exercises its power today

The case of Alaa Hamoudi was one of the first I investigated as an OSI & investigative journalist with @LHreports. The chain of evidence we gathered was unprecedented, with most parts of Alaa's experience corroborated by digital evidence or third-party testimonies.

For @WIRED & @LHreports, I looked inside the European companies (and one UN agency) selling governments around the world software that claims to predict "risky" travelers using AI: wired.com/story/inside-the-b…

An absolute MUST READ: our partners @SIRAJ_SYRIA were under heavy surveillance by the Assad regime for work we did together @LHreports. @MoBassiki showing what brave journalism in exile looks like

EXECLUSIVE: Documents Found After the Fall of Assad Show Syrian Intelligence Spying on @SIRAJ_SYRIA and our journalistic activities. 📍A file discovered at GID General Intelligence Directorate headquarters details an operation to investigate SIRAJ, a Syrian journalist collective that is part of the @OCCRP network and media partner of @ICIJorg & @LHreports. Thread 🧵👇