Amnesty seeks moratorium on surveillance technology

The rights group warns of ‘devastating impact of the poorly regulated spyware industry on human rights worldwide’.

Allegations that governments used phone malware supplied by an Israeli firm to spy on journalists, activists and heads of state have “exposed a global human rights crisis”, Amnesty International said, asking for a moratorium on the sale and use of surveillance technology. In a Friday statement, the NGO warned of “the devastating impact of the poorly regulated spyware industry on human rights worldwide”. The NSO Group’s Pegasus software – able to switch on a phone’s camera or microphone and harvest its data – is at the centre of a storm after a list of about 50,000 potential surveillance targets was leaked to rights groups.