Pegasus right to privacy and intrusion

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”- Benjamin Franklin1

In today’s world, we are in a position where we have surrendered our rights to the states which are subject to reasonable restrictions for protection from any sort of external or internal transgressions. Such a social contract ensures the safety of our fundamental freedom and civil liberty. Hence it becomes the duty of the state to use reasonable means to provide welfare to society. The concept behind this newly deployed spyware is unprecedented, it is the straight-up flouting of an individual’s private, and professional and political life. Such infringement of human rights at a mass level is equivalent to the infraction of rule of law everywhere.

The term spyware in a layman’s term means deployment of a pernicious application to a targeted device without the cognizance of the owner of that device. Pegasus is spyware, that has been developed by NSO Group Technologies an Israeli technology firm, which can be clandestinely installed in an individual’s electronic gadgets to have extra-judicial espionage and steal data through encrypted channels.

It can also furtively activate the microphone and camera of that targeted device in order to monitor day to day activities of the owner of that device. Properties of such spyware are very intricate and it includes zero-day exploits making it exorbitant in monetary aspect. Since the advent of 1 Memoir of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin
this spyware, the constitutional rights related to privacy have been jeopardized.

The constitutional right to privacy is an innate part of an individual’s life this statement was highlighted in the landmark case of People’s Union For Civil Liberties (PUCL) V. Union of India (SC 1997)2. Certain statutory provisions also confer power regarding reasonable surveillance such as section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 18853 which confers power on the government to intercept the messages of an individual in the pretext of national sovereignty, integrity, and complete obviation of an illegitimate act. The procedure to employ this act has been engrafted under rule 419A of the Indian Telegraphic Rule 1951 4.

It is the need of the hour to realize the fact that covert deployment of this spyware will result in extra-judicial surveillance which is a synonym for data theft hence illicit. We should also acknowledge the fact that why it is incumbent to have an expeditious judicial response and a probe into this external transgression. National authorities have to make more stringent laws regarding data protection and prevention of the interest of data principal. Awareness regarding such a threat must be provided so that an individual should act due diligently when the time comes.

Suryansh Singh Bhadauria
Writer