“Any indication that intrusion of privacy actually occurred needs to be thoroughly investigated and all responsible for a possible breach have to be brought to justice,” EU Commissioner Didier Reynders told MEPs at the start of a debate in the European parliament on the Pegasus spyware scandal, according to The Guardian. He said that the European Union’s executive branch condemned alleged attempts by national security agencies to spy on political adversaries illegally, the report added. Reynders said that a pending EU privacy regulation would tighten the rules further and called for MEPs and the member states to urgently agree on the details of that new law in light of the spyware scandal, The Guardian reported. “This is, of course, the responsibility of each and every member state of the EU, and I expect that in the case of Pegasus, the competent authorities will thoroughly examine the allegations and restore trust,” he was quoted as saying in the report. The former Belgian justice minister added that the EU’s executive branch was also closely following an investigation by Hungary’s data protection authority into claims that Viktor Orbán’s far-right government had deployed Pegasus spyware against journalists, media owners, and opposition political figures. The Pegasus exposé carried out by a consortium of 17 media organisations, which is led by Forbidden Stories with forensic analysis by Amnesty International, has severe ramifications on issues pertaining to privacy and surveillance around the world. The exposé revealed a leaked database of numbers including that of French President Emmanuel…
