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Responding to a statement by WhatsApp on Tuesday that spyware produced by the Israeli firm NSO Group was used to target more than 100 human rights activists, Danna Ingleton, Deputy Director of Amnesty Tech, said: “These latest revelations underscore that NSO Group continues to profit from its spyware products being used to intimidate, track, and punish scores of human rights defenders across the globe, including the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico. WhatsApp deserves credit for their tough stance against these malicious attacks, including their efforts to hold NSO to account in the courts. NSO says its spyware is solely intended to ‘prevent crime and terrorism’, but instead the firm’s invasive surveillance tools are being used to commit human rights abuses. The safest way to stop NSO’s spyware products reaching governments who plan to misuse them is to revoke the company’s export license. This is why next week, Amnesty International is supporting a legal case in Tel Aviv District Court to force the Israeli Ministry of Defence to do exactly that."... On 7 November, the Tel Aviv’s District Court is due to hear a legal case arguing that Israel’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) should revoke NSO Groups export licence... The legal action is being brought by approximately 30 members and supporters of Amnesty International Israel and others from the human rights community.
Part of the following timelines
WhatsApp sues Israeli cyber surveillance company NSO Group, accusing it of hacking the phones of human rights activists & journalists
The European Parliament's PEGA committee is investigating the use of spyware across Europe, revealing widespread misuse against journalists, activists, and politicians, and calling for stricter regulation and institutional reforms to protect democratic values.
Pegasus became the center of controversy after an international media consortium reported it was used in attempts to hack smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives, and officials in some 50 countries.
Washington Post editorial acknowledges importance of US decision to blacklist NSO Group, calls for tackling the rest of the sprawling and shadowy spyware industry that threatens civil society around the globe.
CSOs & experts request U.N. Human Rights Council to urgently denounce & mandate independent investigations into situation of human rights violations facilitated by sale, export, transfer, & use of surveillance technology
Five organisations call upon the European Commission and EU member states to follow up on their promise of creating a transparent market in cyber-surveillance technologies bound by effective human rights safeguards.
Usama Khilji, Director of Bolo Bhi, writes that the Pegasus scandal has clearly demonstrated the dangers posed by the unchecked sale of surveillance technology to governments.
Civil society groups say the Pegasus revelations should be a wake-up call for the urgent need to protect the right to privacy. The groups say the government should carry out surveillance reform that ensures independent judicial oversight, and provides for judicial remedy, as well as a data protection framework that respects rights.
Bahraini human rights activists, including an activist from the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, were hacked with NSO's Pegasus spyware. The zero-click attack defeated new security protections that Apple designed to withstand covert compromises, say researchers at Citizen Lab.
David Haigh and Tiina Jauhiainen, two associates of the emir of Dubai’s daughter, have joined a group of potential claimants considering legal action in the wake of the Pegasus scandal after their phones were allegedly targeted with NSO spyware.
Seventeen journalists from seven countries who were listed as potential or actual victims of Pegasus spyware have filed complaints with prosecutors in Paris
WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption, meaning messages shared via the platform are, under normal circumstances, highly secure—a feature that has made it attractive for journalists, human rights defenders, and other vulnerable users, particularly in repressive environments. In an interview with CPJ Will Cathcart, the chief executive of WhatsApp, says spyware subverting end-to-end encryption is a threat to democracy and expresses concerns about attacks on human rights defenders.
A London law firm is considering bringing legal proceedings on behalf of nine British people who were allegedly targeted by the Pegasus mobile phone spyware created by the Israeli company NSO Group.
The Committee to Protect Journalists spoke to David Kaye, former Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion & expression, about the Pegasus Project and why surveillance reform should reach beyond NSO Group and Israel.
Human Rights Watch reports that NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware has been used for surveillance of dozens of journalists, human rights activists, and others demonstrate the urgent need for governments to suspend the trade in surveillance technology until rights-protecting regulatory frameworks are in place. Human Rights Watch says governments should immediately cease their own use of surveillance technologies in ways that violate human rights.
Amnesty International Australia has written to Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews, reiterating that the surveillance industry must no longer be afforded a laissez-faire approach from governments with a vested interest in using this technology to commit human rights violations.
The London-headquartered private equity firm is to be wound up following a months-long dispute between its three principals and controversy over its ownership of the surveillance technology provider NSO Group
In this joint open letter, 146 civil society organizations and 28 independent experts worldwide call on states to implement an immediate moratorium on the sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology. The signatories highlight the key human rights implications of the Pegasus project's exposé and issue a series of recommendations to states, as well as to states that export surveillance technology.
This briefing highlights key insights into the human rights risks from digital surveillance technology, such as the improper breadth of targeting under international human rights law; the tool’s clandestine nature; the severe resulting human rights violations; states and companies’ impunity; and states’ failure to protect their residents from illegal hacking and surveillance.
A Moroccan court has sentenced journalist and human rights activist Omar Radi to six years in jail on charges of espionage and rape, offences which he has denied. Days before the trial began in June 2020, an Amnesty International investigation suggested the Moroccan authorities had planted Israel-made Pegasus spyware on Radi's cellphone.
A Forbidden Stories investigation finds that at least 180 journalists around the globe have been spied on by the clients of NSO Group through its software Pegasus
Governments and NSO Group respond to questions sent by the Pegasus project on the abuse of spyware software to targets activists, journalists and human rights defenders
An investigative consortium of 17 organisations alleges widespread abuse of NSO's spyware Pegasus, which governments across the world have been using to hack activists, journalists and politicians
Amnesty International’s Security Lab published a forensic methodology report into how they verified the presence of NSO Group's spyware Pegasus on infected mobile phones