The Federal Criminal Police Office in Germany secretly contracted the Israeli company NSO to purchase Pegasus spyware to monitor suspects. This is reported by die Zeit.
According to the newspaper, the infamous software gives the secret services full access to the mobile device of the person being monitored. Pegasus can spy on iPhones and Android smartphones in real time, record conversations, read location data, secretly activate the camera, and bypass encrypted chat messages.
The agency has been in talks with an Israeli company since 2017. Lawyers stated that the software's capabilities go beyond the scope of German law, since in fact it hijacks people's personal phones. However, the Federal Constitutional Court later ruled that, in special cases, security forces could infiltrate suspects' equipment.
On July 19, from the journalistic investigation, it became known that the special services of several countries used the spyware of the Israeli company NSO Group to spy on journalists, oppositionists and foreign politicians. The list of possible targets included French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, fourteen French ministers, and French President Emmanuel Macron.
On May 31, the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper wrote about the US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
The software maker officially denies all charges and says the Pegasus is being used solely to capture terrorists and save lives.
