Israeli defence minister to share findings on NSO with France
Benny Gantz will share government assessment with France, whose president was allegedly among targets of spyware sold by Israeli company.
Israelâs defence minister will share on Wednesday the initial findings from a government assessment of NSO Group exports with France, whose president was allegedly among targets of spyware sold by the private Israeli spyware company.
President Emmanuel Macronâs phone was on a list of targets that were possibly under surveillance by Morocco, which used NSOâs Pegasus software, according to Franceâs Le Monde newspaper. The French leader has called for an investigation.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantzâs office said he would fly out to meet French counterpart Florence Parly for talks about Lebanonâs governance crisis and Iranâs nuclear diplomacy.
âHe (Gantz) will also update the minister on the topic of NSO,â the office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Gantzâs ministry, which oversees commercial exports of cyber-surveillance technologies, is part of a high-level task force assessing allegations about Pegasus that were published last week by 17 media organisations, led by the Paris-based non-profit journalism group Forbidden Stories.
The media organisations said Pegasus had been used in attempted and successful hacks of smartphones belonging to journalists, government officials and human rights activists.
NSO has rejected the reporting, saying it was âfull of wrong assumptions and uncorroborated theoriesâ.
Pegasus is intended for use only by government intelligence and law-enforcement agencies to fight terrorism and crime, the company said.
Israelâs top-rated Channel 12 TV news said Gantz would tell his French host that, if the Israeli assessment finds abuse of Pegasus by the Moroccans, they could be cut off from the system.
Israeli officials did not comment on that report. Gantzâs ministry and NSO declined to identify countries that own Pegasus.
One Gantz aide told Reuters that it would take âweeksâ for the governmentâs NSO assessment to be completed.
Asked if the Defence Ministry might increase oversight of NSO exports, the aide said: âThe oversightâs fine. There are totally different issues here.â The aide would not elaborate.
NSO has said it does not know the specific identities of people against whom clients use Pegasus, but that if it receives complaints it can acquire the target lists and unilaterally shut down the software for any clients found to have abused it.
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