nso group, which sells this powerful spyware, was sanctioned early November by the United States.
Le Monde
“The European Union should follow the example of the United States, and put [the Israeli company NSO Group] on its list of sanctions and take all appropriate measures to prohibit the sale, the transfer, the importation The export and use of NSO Group technologies as long as appropriate measures for the protection of human rights have not been put in place. “
In an open letter, published this December 3rd and addressed to EU Foreign Ministers, a coalition of 80 human rights organizations asks the Union and its member countries to sanction NSO Group and to prohibit the use of Pegasus, the spyware sold by this Israeli company. The text is notably signed by Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Privacy International.
In July, a media consortium, including Le Monde, had revealed that this powerful spyware was massively used by several governments to spy on lawyers, journalists, political opponents or human rights activists. Several victims of illegal surveillance have been identified in Hungary, where the government has initially denied be a client of NSO Group, before recognizing having bought this software.
European law “makes it possible to adopt targeted sanctions against entities which are considered to be responsible for violations of law to be detrimental to the objectives of the foreign and security policy of the EU, which includes the attacks against Freedom of association, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression, “wrote the associations. “These rights have been violated on multiple occasions using NSO Group’s technology.”
Multiple European customers
NSO Group was placed at the beginning of November on the black list of the US State Department for similar reasons, a sanction that drastically limits the commercial relations that the US company can maintain with American customers or suppliers.
In Europe, several investigations are underway, but no sanction has been decided against the company. In addition to Hungary, several other countries are, or been, NSO Group clients – without this means that these countries have all been an illegal use of Pegasus. In addition to Germany, several Union countries have purchased access to the software, according to the information of the world.