The Renew Europe group, led by Sophie in ‘t Veld, a centrist MEP, demanded an investigation into the misuse of certain Member States of the European Union of the spyware Pegasus, published by the Israeli company NSO Group. A commission of inquiry will be created in the European Parliament in an attempt to shed light on this matter.
Hungary and Poland are among the Member States to have used Pegasus
It was in a tweet published on February 9 that the MEP welcomed the opening of an investigation on this subject. She was not the only one to campaign for the European Parliament to look into the use of the Pegasus spyware within the European Union itself. “The hacking of citizens with the Pegasus software has taken place in several EU countries. In Poland and Hungary it has been used against lawyers, journalists, independent media owners and the campaign manager of the biggest candidate in the parliamentary elections”said MEP Roza Thun, member of Polska 2050 in Poland, and MEP Anna Donáth, leader of the Momentum party in Hungary.
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Good news: the proposal by @RenewEurope for an @Europarl_EN inquiry committee into the #Pegasus scandal now has support from a majority! It must be set up asap and fully investigate claims of illegal spying on government critics. @rozathun @donath_anna
— Sophie in ‘t Veld (@SophieintVeld) February 9, 2022
In France, traces of this spyware have been found in the smartphones of five ministers: Jean-Michel Blanquer, Jacqueline Gourault, Sébastien Lecornu, Emmanuelle Wargon and Julien Denormandie. Emmanuel Macron’s mobile phone would even have been in the sights of the Moroccan secret services. Many governments have been accused of bugging political dissidents and journalists. The Pegasus software provides access to information contained in a telephone without its holder being able to realize it. It allows you to read messages, view photos, listen to phone calls, or even trigger geolocation tracking.
Towards the prohibition of surveillance technologies?
The UN calls for a moratorium on surveillance technologies. In a press release issued in August 2021, two weeks after the NSO Group revelations, the UN said: “we are deeply concerned that highly sophisticated intrusive tools are being used to monitor, intimidate and silence human rights defenders, journalists and political opponents”. At the time, Edward Snowden also asked the ban of the spyware business. According to the famous whistleblower, we live in a world in which no smartphone is immune to hacking.
Recently, it was the Biden administration that decided to blacklist NSO Group. Despite the good diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel, the White House decided to strike a blow by blacklisting NSO Groupas well as three other companies, considered as “dangerous” : Candiru, Positive Technologies and Computer Security Initiative Consultancy. Also in the United States, Apple filed a complaint against the Israeli company with the aim “prohibit NSO Group from further harming people using Apple products and services”.