Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, took to social media to express his reaction to the ruling. “The ruling is a huge win for privacy. We spent five years presenting our case because we firmly believe that spyware companies could not hide behind immunity or avoid accountability for their unlawful actions.”
In its ruling on Friday, the United States District Court held Israeli technology company NSO Group liable for targeting the devices of 1,400 WhatsApp users. Pegasus spyware is developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO.
The case now moves the deliberations to determine damages, which is set to begin in March next year. The ruling came five years after instant messaging app WhatsApp sued the NSO Group in the US District Court of North California in October 2019.
In its ruling, the Court concluded that in exploiting a bug in WhatsApp, NSO Group had violated sections of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a federal cybersecurity law that criminalizes unauthorized access to computers, networks and other digital information, and a similar state law in California called the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA). reported the Indian Express.
Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, took to social media to express his reaction to the ruling. “The ruling is a huge win for privacy. We spent five years presenting our case because we firmly believe that spyware companies could not hide behind immunity or avoid accountability for their unlawful actions.”
” Surveillance companies should be on notice that illegal spying will not be tolerated. WhatsApp will never stop working to protect people’s private communication.” Cathcart wrote on social media.
WhatsApp, in the Court, had claimed that Pegasus customers had a minimal role in its deployment of the spyware, with NSO Group managing a substantial part of the process.
“The customer only needed to enter the target’s device number and press Install. Pegasus will install the agent on the device remotely without any engagement,” WhatsApp had argued in Court.
NSO accepted that installing Pegasus through WhatsApp was indeed a matter for “NSO and the system to take care of, not a matter for clients to operate.”
Let’s now quickly discuss what had happened in India after the news of Pegasus spyware being used to target political leaders, journalists and activists was broken.
In 2021, a global collaborative investigative project revealed that Israeli company NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware targeted over 300 mobile phone numbers in India, including that of two serving ministers in the Modi cabinet, Ashwini Vaishnav and Pralhad Patel.
Three Opposition leaders, one constitutional authority, several journalists and business persons.
Soon after the story was out, Uproar from the opposition in the parliament was witnessed, demanding a JPC probe into the matter.
The Centre unequivocally denied allegations of surveillance using Pegasus Spyware.The Union government termed the story as sensational, and seeming to be an attempt to malign Indian democracy and its well established institutions.
The NSO Group denied the claims, saying the snooping allegations were false and misleading.
A petition was filed in the Supreme Court seeking a court-monitored investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the Pegasus spyware scandal. It also sought prosecution of “all accused persons/ministers for buying of Pegasus and snooping on citizens of India.
In October 2021, the Supreme Court ordered an investigation headed by Justice Raveendran to investigate the allegations of snooping using Pegasus.
The Supreme Court bench headed by the then CJI NV Ramanna in August 2022 took on record the report of the committee appointed by it to investigate snooping allegations.
The committee’s findings revealed that the Government of India did not cooperate with the probe.
In its findings, the Court revealed that the technical committee had found malware in five of the 29 devices it got. Still, it failed to determine if the malware was Pegasus because the available data was limited.
The SC also said: “The Technical Committee and the Overseeing Judge have submitted their reports in sealed covers. The same are taken on record.
The sealed covers were opened in the Court, and we read some portions of the reports.
Thereafter, the reports were re-sealed and kept in the safe custody of the Secretary General of this Court, who shall make it available as and when required by the Court”. The SC said.
The reports have continued to remain in sealed covers since then. It will be interesting to see if the opposition in India raises the issue of Pegasus again or not.
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