Israel announces probe on claims of police using NSO's Pegasus spyware illegally

Israel's attorney general announced that he was opening an investigation into Israeli police's use of phone monitoring technology,  following claims that detectives unlawfully monitored targets without authority, local media reported. Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit said in a four-page letter on Thursday that he had not yet found evidence to back up claims made by Israeli business newspaper Calcalist stating that police had secretly monitored the leaders of a protest movement against then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, mayors, and other citizens without court approval.

Mandelblit, however, stated that many concerns remained unanswered and that he was organising an investigation team led by a top deputy. The newspaper's specific incidents create a very alarming picture, he said, but don't provide enough precise evidence to identify the accused misuse cases, Haaretz reported.

Mandelblit's letter arrived just hours after Israel's police head announced that a thorough inquiry into the newspaper's claims had been ordered. Calcalist reported last week that police had used the NSO Group's Pegasus hacking software to spy on some of Netanyahu's political foes, among a slew of other alleged abuses of the technology. The police, on the other hand, has dismissed the report as false, claiming that they merely follow the law. However, parliamentarians reacted angrily to the publishing, prompting additional probes into the charges by various Israeli institutions.

NSO says it has no control over how its customers utilise spyware

The NSO spyware group refuses to name its clients and claims to have no idea as to who is being targeted. According to the corporation, its products are designed to be used against criminals and terrorists, and it has no control over how its customers utilise the software. Israel, which controls the firm, has not stated if the spyware is used by its own security forces.

The Pegasus software developed by the Israeli spyware business has been linked to snooping on human rights activists, journalists, and politicians all around the world. The US Commerce Department banned NSO spyware in November, preventing them from using certain US technology, claiming that its tools were used to conduct global repression.

The Calcalist report on Tuesday did not name any of the people whose phones were allegedly hacked, nor did it reference any current or former police official, government, or NSO sources. The investigation cited eight alleged instances of the police's clandestine signal intelligence section using Pegasus to spy on Israeli people, including hacking demonstrators' phones, mayors' phones, a murder suspect's phone, and opponents of the Jerusalem Pride Parade's phone, all without a court order or judge's oversight.

(With inputs from agencies, Image: Unsplash)