Many Snooping Questions

Official response to Pegasus must be clearer. Plus, system of authorising surveillance is flawed

- Apar Gupta and Vrinda Bhandari

That spyware was installed in mobile phones of some Indian citizens – those targeted included journalists, politicians, activists, ministers and even a Supreme Court judge – is not really disputable.

Reports on such surveillance are credible for multiple reasons. First, they are a part of an international collaborative investigation by Paris-based media non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International. Second, these findings have been vetted by 16 media entities from across the world. Finally, the technical analysis on smartphones that confirms the presence of the spyware and its methodology was undertaken by the reputed Citizen Lab, housed at the University of Toronto.

Of course, these disturbing revelations are not wholly novel. They are the second tranche of information on the Pegasus spyware manufactured by Israeli company NSO Group. And even a quick glance at facts available raises many questions.

According to NSO, this spyware is sold only to governments to investigate and prevent terrorist and national security incidents. Even applicable regulations cited by them require approval by the Israeli defence ministry, since Pegasus is considered a cyber weapon and requires an arms export licence.

However, the list of targets in India seems to be far removed from any such potential national security investigation. These people are mostly legislators, journalists and activists. This is a repeat of the first Pegasuscaused privacy breach reported in October, 2019. Several activists, many connected to the Bhima Koregaon investigation, were targeted with Pegasus, which infected their smartphones via a missed call on WhatsApp.