Amidst the Pegasus Spyware row, Human rights group Amnesty International has claimed that it has never said that the recently leaked list of phone numbers was specifically a list of numbers targeted by NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.
Cybersecurity Journalist Kim Jetters said that Amnesty International, in a new statement, asserts that the list of numbers was indicative of the interests of the company’s clients.
According to India Today report, Amnesty stated, “Amnesty and the investigative journalists and media outlets they work with have made a clear language that this is a list of numbers marked as numbers of interest to NSO customers, meaning they are kind of people NSO clients might like to spy on.”
Amnesty further added, “The list contains the kind of people NSO’s clients would ordinarily be interested in spying on, but the list isn’t specifically a list of people who were spied on, though a very small subset of people on the list was indeed spied on.”
The list of numbers that surfaced following an investigation carried by Paris-based organization Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International is at the center of a controversy. According to the investigation, over 50,000 phone numbers including politicians, journalists, and activists are believed to be the potential targets of surveillance through Pegasus software of the Israeli surveillance company NSO Group.
Around 300 Indians are among the potential targets on the list. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, political strategist Prashant Kishore along with more than 40 journalists and two union ministers are among the ones whose phone numbers have been figured in the list.
NSO Group affirmed that this software was only sold to governments and not to private players. As yet, the Union government has debunked claims that alleges its involvement in Pegasus spyware issues.
Reportedly, the NSO Group has claimed the reports to be ‘fabricated’. NSO spokesperson Ariella Ben commented, “It is not an NSO list, and it never was, it is fabricated information.it is not the list of targets or potential targets of NSO’s customers. This is all baseless.”
