In Pegasus battle, the fight for surveillance reform

Source: This post is based on the article “In Pegasus battle, the fight for surveillance reform” published in The Hindu on 22nd July 2022.

Syllabus: GS 3 – Basics of cyber security.

Relevance: India’s Pegasus project.

News: A year has passed since the disclosures about India’s Pegasus project.

What is India’s Pegasus project?

How transparency is lacking in India’s Pegasus project?

A report by The New York Times on January 31, 2022, stated that ‘India has bought Pegasus in 2017 as part of a $2-billion’ defence package.

Refusal from government and its agencies: The ministers and specialised agencies in India refused to directly address the claims made by the Pegasus Project. Even the CERT-IN (the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team) the nodal agency that deals with cybersecurity threats has remained silent.

What was the judicial response to India’s Pegasus project?

The Court constituted a technical committee to examine whether the spyware had been used on Indian citizens. Eight months have passed, but the committee has yet to arrive at any findings. In May 2022, the committee placed an ‘interim report’ before the Court asking for time to place the final report.

How do other countries respond to their Pegasus project?

Isreal: The government set up a senior inter-ministerial team to begin an investigation while the Foreign Minister said that the government would work to ensure that Pegasus did not fall into the wrong hands.

France: The government ordered a series of investigations within a day of the revelations. Its cybersecurity agency confirmed that the spyware had been used to target French citizens.

The United States: The government added NSO to its ‘Entity List for Malicious Cyber Activities’, which restricted the ability of U.S. companies to export goods or services to NSO.

Note: Pegasus spyware was created by NSO Group.

The United Kingdom: The spyware company implemented a change to ensure that Pegasus could no longer target U.K. numbers after revelations, in 2021.

What is the status of the Surveillance industry in India?

The Indian ‘surveillance for hire’ industry is growing. These firms offer their services to anyone who can pay, following which they proceed to spy on indicated targets by hacking their devices.

Hence, India should make India’s Pegasus project as India’s ‘Watergate Moment’.

Note: In the aftermath of Watergate, the institutional response in the United States held President Richard Nixon and others involved accountable, in which all branches of the state acted to check the abuse of power.

What needs to be done?

Complete overhaul of surveillance laws: The Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Indian Telegraph Act 1885 empower the Government to surveil. They concentrate surveillance powers in the hands of the executive and do not contain any independent oversight provisions, judicial or parliamentary.

The proposed data protection law does not address these concerns despite proposals from members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee. Instead, the proposed law provides wide exemptions to the Government relating to select agencies from the application of the law. All this has to be addressed.

Need for comprehensive surveillance reform: India needs an immediate and far-reaching surveillance reform. This should redress those who approach authorities against unlawful surveillance and encroachment on right to privacy.