Overview
- Federal and Saarland shareholders appointed an independent special auditor and opened a probe after reporting flagged extensive CISPA ties to Chinese researchers.
- The institute’s scientific director, Michael Backes, has been placed on leave while investigators examine whether security‑relevant results were transferred abroad or laws were broken.
- All CISPA projects with Chinese partners have been paused during the review and federal security authorities are coordinating closely with regional officials.
- CISPA says it already uses legal checks, has a newly appointed research‑security officer, and adopted a research‑security strategy on June 10 to strengthen safeguards.
- The case raises a wider policy choice between open international research and protecting sensitive AI and cybersecurity knowledge and could affect future funding and collaboration rules for security labs supported by public money.