Pegasus Right To Privacy

Change is the most consistent entity in the world. Change is then followed by evolution. The theory of change and evolution also applies to the field of war and security. The modern-day warfare and threat to security have evolved from traditional guns used in wars and spys, being physically present for snooping the cyber-attacks and digital Spywares that are capable of being operated from miles away. The latest in this list is the “Pegasus Project”, developed by Israel-based company NSO, reported as the agency to spy on Politicians, Journalists & Activists in India and around the globe.

Pegasus is graded as “cyber-weapon”1, though the stated aim of Pegasus is to counter crime & terror activities for its clients, As per Israel’s law, these clients can only be authorized government entities. The list of individuals that have reportedly been spied through this software consist of journalists & activists, who are usually critical of woks of their respective governments, making the approach of the clients questionable.

Two laws cover the activity of “spying” or interception in India. First is the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 section 5(2), which allows the government to intercept a “message or class of messages” when it is in the interest of the security of state and maintenance of public order, containing the procedure in Rule 419A of the Rules added in 2007, after the verdict in PUCL vs Union Of India, 1996 and The K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India 2017. The second legislation enabling surveillance is Section 69 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Privacy is the basic right for a democracy to thrive. These rights have been under threat from cross-border projects like Pegasus and domestic projects like CMS, NETRA & NATGRID. It is important that the discussion on privacy rights raised due to the revelation of “Project Pegasus” is not let to wither away with time and discussions on what would constitute exceptional conditions when such stringent surveillance need to be imposed and the independent oversight required to prevent its misuse is of utter importance.

1capable of spying an individual from remote locations by entering phone through wireless transmission or physical insertion & can not only access the available data but can also access “Root Privileges” of the phone through methods like “spear phishing” & “zero-click attacks”1 & turn the phones camera & microphones into eyes and ears.

Akarsh Jain & Udayan Sharma
Writer