Tag: surveillance

The Pegasus Project – democracy and need for internet laws.

In a shocking revelation, the minister of Telecommunication, Government of India faced questions on the Project Pegasus report – a research on the pegasus spyware that has been developed by the Israeli NSO for “vetted government clients” only. It can breach all Windows, Mac, Android and iOS security checks upto iOS 14.6.

The Forbidden Stories group and the Amnesty International with the Wire and the Washington Post revealed that governments, politicians and journalists all over the world have been targeted with more than 300 people in India alone been tracked regularly using the spyware. Allegedly, only 10 out of these 300 people had mobiles with conclusive or clear presence of the software. These 300 people however include journalists, politicians, cabinet ministers and a sitting Supreme Court judge. These numbers and cases are similar in countries like Mexico, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Rwanda, Azerbaijan and Hungary.

Ultimate spyware' — How Pegasus is used for surveillance
The Pagasus is developed by Israeli NSO.

The first and foremost question ought to be raised against Israel and all governments that are using the spyware, for a spyware is not how a democracy should work in theory. After all, little is left of “democracy” in most nations in the last decade. The second question is why there is an absence of data protection laws in most countries including India, Pakistan and south Asian nations – that house a large part of humanity. The third question is to be raised against the government in India where an official allegedly replied to a question about the spyware by stating that all monitoring, interception and decryption is or shall be carried out as per a “due process of law” which is ironic because there are no such laws in India.

Now, back to the questions that Mr Ashwini Vaishnav, Minister of Telecommunication, India had to answer in the Parliament several hours ago. The minister out right refused any spyware quoting the Binoy Viswam vs RBI case in the supreme court where the WhatsApp Counsel refused any spyware involvement. However, this might actaully be true because the NSO has quite clearly used the term – “vetted governments”. So, speaking per se, no private contractor is involved. However, this conclusion is only one way of seeing things. The author recommends personal discretion and further research as the press conference against Pegasus took place only on the 18th of July 2021. The Minister also pointed out that the NSO uses data and using data should not be equated to surveillance. He also added that surveillance is not possible in a country like India with so many checks and balances.

The author has no opinion that supports or opposes the answers Mr Vaishnav presented today. However, just as a note – surveillance is always illegal in any democracy. It is illegal in the US and yet about 5 years ago, news of massive US surveillance across the globe was made public by leaked documents. Surveillance is almost always carried out by the Executive without intimating the legislature or the public. Many-a-times, even the ruling party is unaware of the realities of the state. What we as a democracy can do is to establish stronger laws against the process and establishing a more transparent mechanism to keep the executive in check.

Finally, this article is based only on the events that unfolded on the 18th of July 2021 and the immediate aftermath on the 19th of the same month. Let us await further investigations and reports to build any conclusive opinion about any institution. However, the need for stronger privacy laws is important anyways, irrespective of the type of state one lives in – especially in a democracy.

Surveillance and Privacy

The debate on Surveillance and Privacy has become an indisputable component of all environments. While some degree of surveillance has always existed, in the last few decades it has expanded due rise of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). Surveillance practices particularly in technologically advanced societies have increased because of use of ICTs.

What is Surveillance? Surveillance can be understood as any focused attention on personal details. This could be for the purpose of influence, management, or exercising control. Besides those who may be suspects (owing to their record of alleged offences), the everyday lives of ordinary people like workers, travelers etc find that their personal data is of high interest to others.

Everyday life may now appear less private, and ordinary people might feel that they are more vulnerable to control, due to the use of searchable databases, for categorizing and profiling where deep rooted questions of power are also involved. A lot of scholars have suggested that what exists now is an increased need for ethics of information in an era where we are witnessing intensifying surveillance. This is also because life chances and choices are likely to be negatively affected by the judgments made on the basis of such data, which means that surveillance is deep rooted in basic questions of social justice and freedom.

ICTs are being used to increase the power, reach, and capacity of surveillance systems. The most controversial element in this regard is the processing of personal data for the purposes of control, in order to influence or manage population. Sociologist Gary T. Marx coined the term ‘surveillance society’ back in mid-1980s. Later historians remarked that surveillance societies were becoming ‘information societies.’ Gilles Deleuze went on to suggest that we all now live in societies where cameras, personal identification numbers (PINs), barcodes are all used to determine which opportunities will be open, and which will be closed to whom in daily life.

The idea of a surveillance society gains credence by the fact that in ordinary everyday life, not only are people themselves constantly being watched, they are also willing to use such technical devices to watch others. For instance, there are plenty of domestic technologies in the market that provide video camera protection to homes and offices, such as CCTV which is now common in schools, colleges, work places etc.

What becomes important here is that in most cases, surveillance is already known about by those whose data are stored, manipulated, processed in many other ways. Sociologist David Lyon gave the example of those buying houses, they are already aware that checks will be made on them. Similarly, video surveillance cameras are visible on the street and generally speaking, people are aware that they exist. Another example being that Internet users are aware that their activities are traceable.

Thinkers recognize that Surveillance has been expanding since the start of the twenty‐first century particularly in an international response to global terrorism and now more recently to tackle the global pandemic. What it is evident is that surveillance is now much more internationally networked because of ICTs. This has inevitably led to several debates on the breach of privacy.

Reference- https://panoptykon.org/sites/default/files/FeedsEnclosure-oxford_handbook_3.pdf