French President Macron "Was Not A Target", Says Pegasus Maker NSO

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged Israel to suspend exports of the spying technology after heads of state -- including Macron -- and scores of journalists and rights activists featured on a list of alleged targets selected for potential surveillance.

An official at Israeli cybersecurity company NSO Group said Wednesday that the firm's controversial Pegasus spyware tool was not used to target French President Emmanuel Macron. The comments came as Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urged Israel to suspend exports of the spying technology after heads of state -- including Macron -- and scores of journalists and rights activists featured on a list of alleged targets selected for potential surveillance. We can "specifically come out and say for sure that the president of France, Macron, was not a target," Chaim Gelfand, chief compliance officer at NSO Group, told the i24 News television network. But he also alluded to "some cases brought up that we are not so comfortable with", noting that in such circumstances the firm "usually approaches the customer and has a whole long discussion... to try to understand what were his legitimate reasons, if any, to use the system."