"Bulgaria Licensed Surveillance Exports to Rights Violators" 18 June 2026

...Human Rights Watch reviewed documents that show the surveillance company, Circles, based in Bulgaria, was granted licenses to legally export telecommunication interception systems, communications monitoring software, and other types of surveillance technology to countries that have well-documented histories of using similar tools to spy on journalists, activists and to otherwise crack down on dissent.

Human Rights Watch wrote to Circles for their comment and for further information about their licenses on April 15, April 23, and May 21, and June 10, 2026, but received no response. Human Rights Watch correspondence with the Bulgarian authorities in April 2026 about their licensing practices is available on its web site.

The documents in question are export licensing records from 2018 to 2023, each valid for one year, from the Bulgarian government’s Interdepartmental Commission for Export Control and Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction...The documents describe licenses for exports of Circles’ surveillance technology to Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Panama, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Clients included intelligence services, military and police bodies, regional governments, and private companies...

...Member states are obliged to take into consideration the human rights record of a destination country. when assessing an export license application. They should exercise special caution when there are human rights risks, and not grant a license if there is a clear risk that the export would be used for “internal repression.”...Many of countries for which licenses have been granted have long histories of using surveillance technology to violate rights...

From related reporting: "HRW invited Circles to comment and did not receive a response by the time of publication."