**NSO Group’s Latest Transparency Report: A Thin Veneer of Accountability?**
In a move that’s being touted as a sign of commitment to transparency and accountability, NSO Group, the Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware, has released a new report detailing its activities and alleged efforts to prevent human rights abuses. But experts in the field are skeptical, citing the company’s history of making unsubstantiated claims and a lack of concrete evidence to support its claims.
The report, which claims to outline NSO’s commitment to respecting human rights and implementing controls to ensure its surveillance tools are used responsibly, is being seen as an attempt by the company to remove itself from a blocklist maintained by the U.S. government. NSO has been lobbying to have its restrictions lifted, and this report is seen as an attempt to demonstrate its commitment to transparency and accountability.
But does it really add up to much? According to the report, NSO has rejected over $20 million in new business opportunities in 2024 due to human rights concerns. Nice-sounding, but where’s the proof? And what about the number of prospects the company rejected, investigated, suspended, or terminated due to human rights abuses involving its surveillance instruments? The report is eerily silent on those details.
Specialists in the field are not impressed. “Allowing outsiders to confirm NSO’s claims is business as usual from an organization that has a decade-long history of making claims that later turned out to be misrepresentation,” says John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights group that has investigated spyware abuses for over a decade.
Natalia Krapiva, the senior tech-legal counsel at Access Now, a digital rights group that investigates spyware abuses, agrees. “This is nothing but another attempt at window dressing, and the U.S. government should not be taken for a fool.”
The U.S. government has previously added NSO to the Entity Record, a blocklist maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). NSO has been lobbying to have its restrictions lifted, and this report is seen as an attempt to demonstrate its commitment to transparency and accountability.
But does it really add up to much? The report lacks specific details about the countries where NSO operates or how it plans to prevent human rights abuses involving its surveillance tools. And what about the countries where NSO’s products have already been used to target human rights defenders, journalists, and dissidents?
As NSO continues to push for removal from the blocklist, experts warn that the company’s lack of transparency and accountability raises serious concerns about its commitment to respecting human rights. Will this report be enough to sway the U.S. government and other stakeholders to lift its restrictions? Only time will tell.
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