The State Comptroller has opened an investigation into the alleged use of sophisticated spyware on Israeli citizens by law enforcement agencies following a report by financial newspaper Calcalist.
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The State Comptroller's office said it "places special emphasis on protecting the privacy of Israeli citizens and residents. The technological means serve as evidence in criminal proceedings and raise questions as to the balance between their usefulness and the violation of the right to privacy and additional freedoms. These means also pose risks of leaking personal information and the misuse of databases. As a result, State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman decided to include in the long-established office work plan the issue of law enforcement agencies' use of technologies for enforcement purposes."
According to the Calcalist report, police used the NSO spyware Pegasus to surveil leaders of protests against Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu in 2020, who was then prime minister. It said police also hacked the phones of two sitting mayors suspected of corruption and numerous other Israeli citizens, all without a court order or a judge's oversight.
The Israel Police denied the allegations, saying they operate according to the law, and the NSO Group said it does not identify its clients.
The company says its products are intended to be used against criminals and terrorists, and that it does not control how its clients use the software. Israel, which regulates the company, has not said whether its own security forces use the spyware.
The report, which cited no current or formal officials from the government, police or NSO corroborating the paper's claims, referred to eight alleged examples of the police's secretive signal intelligence unit employing Pegasus to surveil Israeli citizens, including hacking phones of a murder suspect and opponents of the Jerusalem Pride Parade. The report did not name any of the people whose phones were allegedly hacked by the police.
"In all the cases mentioned in the article, and in other instances, use of Pegasus was made at the sole discretion of senior police officers," the report said. "The significance is that with Pegasus, the police can effectively hack without asking a court, without a search or entry warrant, without oversight, to all cell phones."
The Privacy Protection Authority said it was concerned by reports that the Israel Police was allegedly using the Pegasus program to monitor Israeli citizens and had contacted Israel Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai to "examine the repercussions of the use of the program for citizens' personal information."
The authority emphasized "that to the extent that the police use the Pegasus software to monitor Israeli citizens, this is a serious violation of the privacy of the citizens on whom the surveillance is carried out."
Refraining from commenting specifically on the Calcalist report, the authority said, "The use of technological systems for monitoring citizens, including within the framework of the war on crime, is a mechanism that inevitably includes a serious violation of citizens' privacy, and implies a violation of the autonomy of each and every one of us, an individual's ability to exercise their full rights, and the democratic nature of Israeli society." It noted "an urgent meeting was requested with the police commissioner and at the same time, for the police to respond to the authority's request for clarifications on the matter. "
The report sparked an outcry across Israel's political spectrum.
Energy Minister Karine Elharrar told Army Radio that such surveillance "was something that a democratic country cannot allow."
Likud MK Yuval Steinitz said that surveillance of citizens by law enforcement without judicial oversight is improper and that if the claims are correct, it should be investigated.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev, whose department oversees the police, tweeted that he would verify that police received explicit authorization from a judge to use the spyware.
Shas has called on the Knesset speaker to launch a parliamentary investigation. Yesh Atid MK Merav Ben Ari, who heads the Knesset's public security committee, said the panel would hold a hearing into the report's claims.
The Israel Police issued a statement after the report's publication, saying that "there's no truth to the claims raised in the article" and that "all police operations in this field are in accordance with the law, in line with court orders and meticulous protocols."
Senior police officials asked for any evidence of illegal wiretapping to be handed over to the police. They noted the Israel Police's National Cyber Crime Unit "was established in light of the need to fight major crime in the digital era, to prevent murders, car explosions, and public vandalism, among other things solely in accordance with the law."
They emphasized that on the issue of wire-tapping, "We operate with internal oversight, from the issuance of an order, its implementation, through providing a report to the [police] commissioner, and all this in an orderly report to the Knesset and the Law and Justice Committee."
The police do not wire-tap protesters, they said, noting, "We only use [such] tools to combat crime. The activity is not used on normative citizens. These are regulated tools that receive the relevant legal authorizations before they are brought into service. You cannot contend with crime by relying on tools from 1948. And we therefore need advanced technology.
Likud MK Amir Ohana, who was public security minister during the protests, said he had no knowledge of the reported surveillance.
The Black Flag protest movement, whose leaders were allegedly surveilled during weekly demonstrations in recent years calling on Netanyahu to resign, called on the police to release the names of the people whose phones were hacked. Spokesman Roee Neuman said the protest leaders only learned of the digital surveillance following the publication of the report.
Pegasus software surreptitiously grants full access to a person's cellphone, including real-time communications.
Tuesday's report was the latest blow for the company, which has faced growing scrutiny and criticism for its software's use by repressive governments.
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