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Pegasus: Security in exchange for freedom

Application of technology makes it good or bad
Last Updated 30 July 2021, 01:04 IST

The defence offered by the Israeli cyber security company NSO Group for the use of its spyware Pegasus for surveillance by governance may be among the most Orwellian of the justifications for Big Brother watch over citizens’ lives. The company is at the centre of a controversy over the alleged use of Pegasus to spy on journalists, human rights activists, politicians and others by governments to which it sold the software. The names of a large number of persons were recently revealed by an international consortium as potential targets for snooping. Some of them have claimed, after laboratory examination of their phones, that the charges could be correct, as traces of the software were found in the phones. Some countries have launched investigations into the charges, and the Israeli government has ordered a probe into the charges against the firm.

The company has said that 'millions of people around the world sleep well at night and walk in the streets safely due to such technologies available with intelligence and law enforcement agencies.' This assumes that the software has been put to use only to track the activities of criminals, terrorists and others who pose a threat to the security of nations. But the information that has come into the public domain shows that most of the people who were probably targeted for surveillance were not the kind that posed a threat to national security or violated laws. Many of them are critics of the government, others are activists for various causes and yet others officers of the government. Some are even supporters of the government. Surveillance of such a broad range of people could hardly be justified on the grounds cited by the company, and it could not have been legal.

No technology is good or bad in itself and it is its application that makes it one or the other. The claim that the spyware makes the world safe and peaceful is a reminder of the authoritarian bargain that offers safety and security in exchange for freedom. The peace that is enforced in the world after robbing people of their freedom is an unreal peace. The world is actually rendered unsafe by those who deploy such technologies against citizens. Those who create it and pass it on to governments that do not respect the rights and freedoms of their own people cannot also escape the blame. Most countries that bought the spyware have authoritarian regimes. When the company had no control over the use of the technology, how could it say that it made the world safe? A world where fundamental and human rights are not safe is not a safe world, and there should be no trade-off between freedom and safety.

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(Published 29 July 2021, 19:26 IST)

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