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Bachelet: Revelations regarding the use of spyware to surveil journalists and human rights defenders are extremely alarming

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The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, stressed that the revelations that Pegasus, an Israeli spyware, was used to spy on journalists, human rights defenders and politicians are extremely alarming.  

In a statement published by the Human Rights Council Media Center in Geneva, Bachelet said: “Revelations regarding the apparent widespread use of the Pegasus software to spy on journalists, human rights defenders, politicians and others in a variety of countries are extremely alarming, and seem to confirm some of the worst fears about the potential misuse of surveillance technology to illegally undermine people’s human rights.”  

“Various parts of the UN Human Rights system, including my own Office, have repeatedly raised serious concerns about the dangers of authorities using surveillance tools from a variety of sources supposed to promote public safety in order to hack the phones and computers of people conducting legitimate journalistic activities, monitoring human rights or expressing dissent or political opposition,” the High Commissioner added.  

Bachelet noted that the association of the use of surveillance programs with the arrest, intimidation, and even killing of journalists and human rights defenders has the distasteful effect of making people censor themselves through fear.

Journalists and human rights defenders play an indispensable role in our societies and when they are silenced, we will all suffer.

“Surveillance measures can only be justified in narrowly defined circumstances, with a legitimate goal. And they must be both necessary and proportionate to that goal,” Bachelet stressed.  

“Given the fact that Pegasus spyware, as well as that created by Candiru and others, enable extremely deep intrusions into people’s devices, resulting in insights into all aspects of their lives, their use can only ever be justified in the context of investigations into serious crimes and grave security threats. If the recent allegations about the use of Pegasus are even partly true, then that red line has been crossed again and again with total impunity,” the High Commissioner explained.  

Bachelet emphasized that companies involved in developing and distributing these surveillance technologies must take immediate steps to mitigate and remedy the harm their products cause or contribute to, and do human rights due diligence to ensure that they no longer play a role in such catastrophic consequences, and avoid getting involved in similar future scenarios.  

The High Commissioner also called on these companies to immediately stop their role in violating human rights, and stressed that states have a duty to protect individuals from companies’ violations of the right to privacy. A key step to effectively prevent the misuse of surveillance technology is for states to require by law that relevant companies fulfill their human rights responsibilities, be more transparent about the design and use of their products, and put in place more effective accountability mechanisms.  

She also noted that the circulation of these reports places an urgent need to improve the regulation of the sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology, and to ensure strict oversight and licensing, because without human rights-compliant regulatory frameworks, there is simply too much risk of misusing these tools to intimidate critics and silence dissent.  

“Governments should immediately cease their own use of surveillance technologies in ways that violate human rights, and should take concrete actions to protect against such invasions of privacy by regulating the distribution, use and export of surveillance technology created by others,” Bachelet concluded.

For more information and media requests or inquiries, please get in touch with us (+41229403538 / media@cfjustice.org)

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