wordpress blog stats
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Victims of Pegasus spyware write to Parliamentary Committee on IT, demand answers from govt

Facebook WhatsApp

 17 of the 22 human rights activists, academics and lawyers, who had been targeted by the Pegasus spyware using a WhatsApp vulnerability, have written to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (letter below), asking it to summon government departments to answer questions related to their unauthorized surveillance operations and if they had purchased and deployed Pegasus. Calling the revelation of this kind of surveillance “deeply disturbing” and a “flagrant violation of our rights as citizens”, they have also volunteered to provide an oral testimony to the committee. The standing committee is scheduled to meet tomorrow, that is, November 20. MediaNama had earlier reported that the standing committee would take up the WhatsApp issue in its meeting. In addition, the committee is also expected to discuss the cyber attack on Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant. It is headed by Dr Shashi Tharoor. 19 of the 22 affected people had earlier written an open letter to the government of India, asking it to reveal all information it has about the attack, other similar methods of mass surveillance, and the identity of concerned players. WhatsApp had told the Indian government that 121 people were targeted by Pegasus in India through the WhatsApp vulnerability. Nihalsing Rathod, one of the people who was targeted using Pegasus, told MediaNama that the signatories believe this committee "to be more empowered, with more expertise on the issue" as it deals with data security and surveillance. The signatories haven't written to the Standing Committee on Home Affairs, which is…

Please subscribe/login to read the full story.
Written By

Send me tips at aditi@medianama.com. Email for Signal/WhatsApp.

Free Reads

News

Telecom companies are against a regulatory sandbox, as they think information revealed by businesses during the sandboxing process might be confidential should be out...

News

According to a statement, the executive body of the European Union had also sought internal documents on the risk assessments and mitigation measures for...

News

The newly launched partially open-sourced LLM Grok-1 can be commercially used but not trademarked.

MediaNama’s mission is to help build a digital ecosystem which is open, fair, global and competitive.

Views

News

NPCI CEO Dilip Asbe recently said that what is not written in regulations is a no-go for fintech entities. But following this advice could...

News

Notably, Indus Appstore will allow app developers to use third-party billing systems for in-app billing without having to pay any commission to Indus, a...

News

The existing commission-based model, which companies like Uber and Ola have used for a long time and still stick to, has received criticism from...

News

Factors like Indus not charging developers any commission for in-app payments and antitrust orders issued by India's competition regulator against Google could contribute to...

News

Is open-sourcing of AI, and the use cases that come with it, a good starting point to discuss the responsibility and liability of AI?...

You May Also Like

News

Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...

Advert

135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...

News

By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...

News

Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...

MediaNama is the premier source of information and analysis on Technology Policy in India. More about MediaNama, and contact information, here.

© 2008-2021 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd. Developed By PixelVJ

Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Name:*
Your email address:*
*
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

© 2008-2021 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd. Developed By PixelVJ