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A United States jury on Tuesday ordered Israeli spyware firm NSO Group to pay WhatsApp $167.3 million, or over Rs 1,417 crore, in punitive damages in a 2019 cyber espionage case, AFP reported.
The jury also ordered the NSO group to pay $444,719, or over Rs 37 lakh, as compensatory damages.
In late 2019, WhatsApp, owned by United States-based technology company Meta, sued the company in a Northern California federal court for allegedly installing Pegasus spyware on users’ phones including those of journalists and activists via the messaging app.
The messaging platform has alleged that the NSO Group’s spyware had been used against 1,400 users of the application over a two-week period in April and May 2019.
In December, a US judge had ruled in the social media company’s favour, holding that the NSO Group illegally used a flaw in WhatsApp to install spyware on users’ phones. The case then proceeded on the question of damages.
Meta said on Tuesday that the verdict was an important step forward for privacy and security. It described it “ as the first victory against the development and use of illegal spyware that threatens the safety and privacy of everyone”.
NSO’s vice president for global communication, Gil Lainer, said they will “carefully examine the verdict’s details and pursue appropriate legal remedies, including further proceedings and an appeal,” AFP reported.
He added that they “firmly believe that our technology plays a critical role in preventing serious crime and terrorism and is deployed responsibly by authorized government agencies”.
When added to an electronic device, the Pegasus software can generally gain access to phone calls, emails, location information, encrypted messages and photographs without the user’s knowledge.
The spyware is licensed to governments around the world by the NSO Group. The cyber intelligence company says it sells the Pegasus software only to “vetted governments” with good human rights records and that it is intended to target criminals.
However, in July 2021, an investigation by a group of 17 media organisations and human rights group Amnesty International showed that Pegasus spyware was being used for the unauthorised surveillance of journalists, activists and politicians across the world, including in India.
In India, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, Union ministers Ashwini Vaishnaw and Prahlad Singh Patel, industrialist Anil Ambani and former Central Bureau of Investigation Director Alok Verma were among the potential targets, The Wire had reported.
The Indian government had denied these allegations. Vaishnaw, the Union information technology minister, told Parliament in July 2021 that illegal surveillance was not possible in India.
Following the reports, the Supreme Court appointed an expert committee to look into the allegations. In August 2022, the court said that some malware was found on five of the 29 phones that the panel examined. However, it was not clear whether the malware was Pegasus.
On April 29, the Supreme Court held there was nothing wrong with India possessing spyware for national security purposes, but expressed concern about its alleged misuse against private individuals. The case will be heard next on July 30.
The United States government blacklisted the NSO Group in November 2021 after it determined that the company had acted “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the US”.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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