The government is being urged to state the use of any spyware in its intelligence gathering and to refuse to use surveillance products made by an Israeli security company.
Reports centred around software called Pegasus, produced by Israel’s NSO Group, which allows the user full remote access to a target’s smartphone.
And while NSO claimed it sells its software only to responsible governments and only for the purposes of law enforcement and anti-terrorism, a list of 50,000 phone numbers — alleged to be targets of Pegasus — indicated activists, politicians and journalists were victims of surveillance.
As a result of the phone list’s publication, activists in Hungary, India and elsewhere have taken to the streets to protest people critical of the government being monitored.