For the first time, a court in the US has held Israel’s NSO Group liable for its intrusive spyware Pegasus, which could set up a measure of accountability for the company that it has, for long, allegedly downplayed.
The decision came in a case filed by Meta-owned WhatsApp against the NSO Group, with the judge in the case, Phyllis Hamilton, holding that the Israeli spyware maker was liable for targeting the devices of 1,400 WhatsApp users, and violating sections of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal cybersecurity law, and a similar state law in California called the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA).
Victims of Pegasus’s use included senior government officials, journalists, human rights activists, political dissidents and diplomats. The installation of Pegasus also extended to devices in India, including those allegedly belonging to journalists, politicians, Union Ministers, besides members of the civil society.
In the US, President Joe Biden’s administration put the NSO Group on a blacklist in 2021 and forbade US government agencies from purchasing its products. Pegasus has been implicated in hacks by authoritarian governments across the world.
In 2021, it was reported that Pegasus was used on more than 300 Indian mobile numbers, including that of two serving ministers in the Narendra Modi government, three Opposition leaders, one constitutional authority, several journalists and business persons.
The revelations raised eyebrows over the Central Government and state government’s involvement in the attacks, since NSO Group has repeatedly said that it only deals with governments and government agencies. However, it should be noted that as part of the WhatsApp vs NSO Group case, unsealed documents had shown that NSO Group, for years, downplayed its role in the deployment of Pegasus. Through interviews and an assessment of subpoenaed documents, WhatsApp contradicted this claim, alleging that Pegasus customers had “minimal role” in its deployment, with NSO Group managing a substantial part of the process.
Following the media reports of 2021, the Indian government unequivocally denied all ‘over the top allegations’ of surveillance using Pegasus. In a statement to Parliament at the time, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the reports had “no substance”. He added that India’s surveillance laws ensure that “unauthorised surveillance cannot occur”. The reports had claimed that Vaishnaw himself may have been a target of Pegasus’ use.
At the time, the NSO Group also claimed that the allegations of snooping were false and misleading. “The report… is full of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theories that raise serious doubts about the reliability and interests of the sources. It seems like the ‘unidentified sources’ have supplied information that has no factual basis and are far from reality,” the NSO Group had said in a statement.
After allegations in India that Pegasus was used on citizens, several petitions were filed in the Supreme Court seeking an inquiry into the charges.
In 2021, the Supreme Court had formed a committee of technical experts to look into allegations of unauthorised surveillance using the Pegasus software. In August 2022, the committee of technical experts found no conclusive evidence on use of the spyware in phones examined by it but noted that the Central Government “had not cooperated” with the panel. The report is sealed and has not been released publicly since.
“As the report is submitted to the Supreme Court, it will not be proper to offer any comments,” retired judge Justice R V Raveendran, who was supervising the probe panel, had told The Indian Express earlier.
Even as the Central Government’s involvement in using Pegasus on Indian citizens remained suspect, the spyware became a hotly discussed issue in at least two states — West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
In 2021, the West Bengal government set up a Commission of Inquiry into the alleged surveillance of phones using Pegasus. It was set up to enquire into and report on inter alia the reported Interception and the possession, storage and use of such information collected through such Interception, in the hands of State actors and non-State actors.” However, the Commission’s work was cut short as the Supreme Court stayed its proceedings.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had later claimed that the West Bengal government had received an offer to purchase the Pegasus spyware, with the NSO Group ready to provide its spyware to the state police for Rs 25 crore around four-five years ago.
In Andhra Pradesh, the alleged use of Pegasus became a political issue between the YSRCP and TDP. In 2022, the state’s Assembly passed a resolution to set up a committee to find out if the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government had bought and used Pegasus, following Banerjee’s statements that West Bengal had been offered Pegasus.
YSRCP, then in power in the state, alleged that TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu may have previously purchased the Pegasus spyware to keep tabs on rival political leaders including Chief Minister at the time Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
In 2024, when the TDP regained control of the state after winning the Assembly election, Chandrababu Naidu sought a report from the Director General of Police (DGP) on whether Pegasus was used to tap the phones belonging to him and his son N Lokesh Naidu by the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy regime.
Lokesh Naidu told The Indian Express that him and Naidu were targeted twice and that they received alerts on their mobile phones. “I have been targeted twice, once during my Yuva Galam yatra in March 2023 and once this April during campaigning. We both received the alerts from Apple. We suspect that Pegasus was used by the Jagan government to tap our phones,” Lokesh said.
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Soumyarendra Barik is Special Correspondent with The Indian Express and reports on the intersection of technology, policy and society. With over five years of newsroom experience, he has reported on issues of gig workers’ rights, privacy, India’s prevalent digital divide and a range of other policy interventions that impact big tech companies. He once also tailed a food delivery worker for over 12 hours to quantify the amount of money they make, and the pain they go through while doing so. In his free time, he likes to nerd about watches, Formula 1 and football. … Read More
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