"Stop Pegasus: Costa Rica is the first country to call for a moratorium on spyware technology" 13 April 2022

At a virtual side conversation at U.N. Human Rights Council’s 49th session... Ambassador Devandas… Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations in Geneva… became the first state representative in the world to publicly call for the “immediate moratorium on the use of spyware technology until a regulatory framework that protects human rights is implemented.”

“States hold the keys to freeing us all from dangerous spyware like Pegasus, because it’s allegedly only sold to states,” said Peter Micek, Access Now’s General Counsel and UN Policy Manager. “In the end, anyone can be targeted with this technology, including government officials, so a moratorium on spyware will secure their digital lives, too.”

“Costa Rica’s pressing call for a moratorium on spyware should be seen as an invitation for other states to publicly reject dangerous technology...” said Ángela Alarcón, Access Nows’s Campaigner for Latin America and the Caribbean.

A comprehensive moratorium on spyware technology must apply to the sale, transfer, and use of such technology. Any future framework should be based on international human rights standards for the use of communications surveillance, including necessity and proportionality.