The recent revelation that the central government did not cooperate with the Supreme Court-appointed technical committee on the Pegasus scam does not come as a surprise. It fits into a pattern of systematic obfuscation of the NDA government on the issue of snooping on opposition leaders, dissidents, and critics. Again, not surprisingly, the court-appointed panel could not conclusively establish if the Israeli spyware was indeed used to infiltrate the smartphones it examined. The committee of experts, which probed allegations of unauthorised use of Israeli NSO Group spyware Pegasus software for surveillance, examined 29 phones and found some malware in five of them but could not say with certainty whether Pegasus spyware was used.
The fact that the Centre chose not to cooperate with the probe indicates that it has a lot to hide from the public. Instead of treating the probe panel report as a vindication of its position, the government must come clean on the controversy and make all the details public. An international media consortium reported last July that over 300 verified Indian mobile phone numbers of activists, journalists, and political leaders were on the list of potential targets for surveillance using Pegasus spyware. Revelations that governments around the world are using military-grade spyware from the NSO to eavesdrop on private conversations have sent shockwaves. The Pegasus can switch on a target’s phone camera and microphone, as well as access data on the device, effectively turning the phone into a pocket spy.