Act Now Against Spyware, Coalition Tells Un Human Rights Council

As the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) convenes at the ongoing 48th regular session, Access Now joins 94 civil society organizations and independent experts in urging member states to denounce abuses facilitated by spyware technologies.

The Pegasus Project revealed a long list of journalists, activists, human rights defenders, lawyers, world leaders, and civil society actors that were a target of NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware. The U.N. HRC should mandate comprehensive measures to investigate and prevent further violations linked to the sale, export, and use of Pegasus spyware and cases of targeted surveillance.

“Member States must urgently act to address the perpetual human rights abuses by States facilitated by NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware,” said Laura O’Brien, UN Advocacy Officer at Access Now. “The clandestine surveillance industry must be held accountable.”

The recent revelations showcased the unprecedented scale of human rights violations by States facilitated by the use of Pegasus with Budapest-based photojournalist Dániel Németh being the latest victim targeted by the spyware.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), governments continue to use digital surveillance tools to target journalists and activists. In 2016, a Citizen Lab investigation revealed that the UAE spied on human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor, who is now serving 10 years in prison under inhumane conditions. The Pegasus Project revealed that friends and family of slain Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, were also targets of Pegasus spyware with the iPhone of Khashoggi’s Turkish fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, targeted and successfully infected. Last June, Access Now and the Gulf Centre for Human Rights launched the MENA Surveillance Coalition, convening civil society organizations working to defend freedom of expression, privacy, and fundamental rights, to call for an end to the sales of digital surveillance tools to repressive governments in the region.

“Invasive surveillance invades and corrodes the lives and work of human rights defenders, journalists, and activists across the globe,” said Kassem Mnejja, MENA Campaigner at Access Now. “Companies like NSO have been given free rein to proliferate the market with the dangerous Pegasus spyware used to facilitate these dehumanising and unsafe actions — this must end now.”

Despite the mounting evidence of its human rights abuses, the NSO Group continues to repeat its false claim that its spyware is only used for legitimate purposes like investigating crime and terror. This cannot continue.

U.N. human rights experts and civil society groups have previously called on governments to immediately implement a global moratorium on the sale, export, transfer, and use of private surveillance technology. Supporting this call, civil society organizations and independent experts are today requesting member states of the U.N. HRC to urgently denounce and mandate independent investigations into the human rights violations facilitated by this technology.

Read the full letter.

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