After Facebook-owned WhatsApp confirmed that Israeli spyware Pegasus was used for snooping on several Indian journalists, academicians, lawyers and activists, technology lawyer Mishi Choudhary on Thursday said Indian laws with respect to encryption lacks transparency.
The move comes after Facebook appealed for legal proceedings in the US Federal Court against the Israeli hacker-for-hire company NSO Group. The group has allegedly targeted 1,400 WhatsApp users with the spyware.
Choudhary said, “WhatsApp has already said that there was a vulnerability and the company had informed most of these people that they were suspecting some kind of indifference from Pegasus. So, if people updated their software, then that vulnerability from their devices was plugged.”
She said the WhatsApp encryption row signals that we need to be wary of technology around us.
Every political party now is lured by the use of technology for surveillance purposes. It is being practiced by the Chinese and assisted and perfected with the help of the Israelis as we see in this example. The court case is in the Ninth Circuit in California and the court papers will reveal certain things. However, we do not know whether it goes on trial or what exactly happens. So, I do not see how NSO is under any obligation to reveal anything to the government of India,” Choudhary added.