On Tuesday, in a conversation with NDTV, the Israel based NSO Group that created Pegasus spyware said that the list of Indian phone numbers reportedly targeted for surveillance by the government with its software is “not ours, never was.”
The latest report by NDTV says that a spokesperson of NSO said that the company is “not related to the list published by Forbidden Stories (the Paris-based non-profit group that obtained a database of 50,000 phone numbers).”
“It is not an NSO list, and it never was – it is fabricated information. It is not a list of targets or potential targets of NSO’s customers,” the spokesperson said, and also added that “repeated reliance on this list and association of people on this list as potential surveillance targets is false and misleading.”
“The company does not have access to the data of its customers,” the spokesperson also said, adding that clients “are obligated to provide us with such information under investigation.”
“If and when NSO receives credible proof of misuse of its technologies, it will conduct a thorough investigation, as it always had and always will,” the spokesperson said.
Under the Pegasus Project, since the last two days, a group of media organizations all around the world have revealed how governments in some countries have spied on journalists, activists and opposition party members. Some senior journalists and opposition members like Rahul Gandhi were also spied upon, the investigative reports claim.
NSO had released a statement on Monday, denying all allegations after the explosive reports of illegal spying using their spyware.
NSO said that it only offered its programme to “vetted governments for the sole purpose of saving lives through preventing crime and terror acts,” and that it is “considering a defamation lawsuit.”