Has Serbia hacked activists’, journalists’ phones? Why?

Amnesty International claims Serbian activists’ phones hacked by police or intelligence agency with spyware tools, raising privacy concerns.

Amnesty International has revealed that phones belonging to Serbian activists and journalists have been hacked by Serbian intelligence and police using Israeli spyware and other mobile device forensics tools.

The software is being used “to unlawfully target journalists, environmental activists and other individuals in a covert surveillance campaign”, Amnesty said on Monday.

Many individuals who were targeted had not been arrested or charged with any offence, it added.

The Serbian Security Intelligence Agency, known as BIA, rejected accusations that spyware had been used illegally.

“The forensic tool is used in the same way by other police forces around the world,” it said in a statement. “Therefore, we are not even able to comment on nonsensical allegations from their [Amnesty’s] text, just as we do not normally comment on similar content.”