Israel appoints commission to review Pegasus-maker NSO

By AFP 22 July 2021, 2:29 pm

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Illustrative. An Israeli woman uses her phone in front of a building in Herzliya that housed the NSO Group intelligence firm, on August 28, 2016. (Jack Guez/AFP/File)

Israel is establishing a commission to review allegations that NSO Group’s controversial Pegasus phone surveillance software was misused, says MK Ram Ben-Barak, the head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

“The defense establishment appointed a review commission made up of a number of groups,” Ben-Barak tells Army Radio. “When they finish their review, we’ll demand to see the results and assess whether we need to make corrections,” the former deputy head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency adds.

NSO chief executive Shalev Hulio tells Army Radio that he would “be very pleased if there were an investigation, so that we’d be able to clear our name.” He also alleges there is an effort “to smear the whole Israeli cyber industry.”