The European Parliament has created a ‘committee of inquiry’ in order to probe accusations of the use of Pegasus spyware by governments in the grouping.
Lawmakers in the bloc voted overwhelmingly to investigate alleged breaches of EU law in the use of surveillance software, by Hungary and Poland among others, a statement said.
The statement also underlined that the 38-member committee is ‘going to look into existing national laws regulating surveillance, and whether Pegasus spyware was used for political purposes against, for example, journalists, politicians and lawyers’.
The Pegasus malware can turn smartphones into pocket spying devices and enable the user to read the messages of the target, track their location and even turn on their camera and microphones without them knowing.
According to Security Week, the malware was created by the NSO Group – an Israeli tech firm – and was a hot topic of controversy last year after an investigation by several media outlets reported a number of governments globally had used it to spy on critics and opponents.
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