Depends. Obviously when they say "secret spyware" that means it is, in fact, secret, and we don't know which spyware they're using, but as the article notes it could be Paragon Solutions.

They have a system called Graphite, but that primarily targets just instant messaging platforms. If the article is to be believed when it says it could activate your camera, that would signal to me it's more likely something from NSO Group, like their Pegasus spyware that can also access your camera, GPS coordinates, and more.

All of these are going to be reliant on zero-day exploits, essentially exploits that aren't known to anyone yet and are still unpatched. All exploits will be a little different, but when it comes to mobile spyware, we usually see them delivered either through texts, websites, or email.

Those attacks can either be someone just receiving the text (even if they don't click on it, AKA a "zero click" attack), or maybe having to actually go to a particular website with the exploit baked in, or running an attachment from an email.

Idk if there are laws around this in Canada, but mobile carriers can apparently install shit that you can't fully uninstall, as soon as you put their SIM in there. I discovered that when my carrier installed their "app center" bs on my non-carrier locked phone.

They don't use it as admissible evidence, they use it to find out whether someone is worth pursuing in legitimate ways that are more time and effort intensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

More than likely yes. It disables biometrics and forces the use of a passcode if you have one enabled.

On Apple devices and Android devices go into lockdown mode when they are restarted.

Both of them will when left idle for a select period of time it will reboot. This is called Inactivity reboot. This basically forces the phone into lockdown mode.

These are new features that have been implemented on Apple and Android respectively fairly recently.

Apple phones also have the ability to wipe themselves away when left off for too long. You can do this with some versions of android but for the most part the one I know of is Graphene OS.

Buying what? Like you don't believe the police can, will, or has done this?

As an iOS user on the fence about switching, can we definitively say that GrapheneOS would protect against this sort of threat? I have a general sense of the containerization, but I'm curious if anything like this specifically has been addressed? If the spyware gives "god mode" access to your device, who's to say Graphene wouldn't fall victim as well?

I admittedly haven't done my own research, but my best guess is assuming that Google allowed for some sort of backdoor to LE... and that would have been (hopefully) discovered and plugged by the Graphene devs?

My phone is just too slow and shitty to support clandestine surveillance