Home ›› 25 Jul 2021 ›› Governance
Staff Correspondent
The association of mobile consumers has expressed concern over the rights and security violation by the possible use of Pegasus spyware in Bangladesh.
Mohiuddin Ahmed, President of the Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers’ Association, sent a statement to the media on Saturday, raising concerns about the Pegasus spyware — made by the Israeli company NSO— and seeking a clear explanation from the government to uphold the constitutional rights of the people.
He said that the British daily The Guardian had published a list of 50,000 phone numbers that had been monitored using Pegasus spyware. The spyware can have access to the mobile phones used by citizens and hack their emails, addresses, call records, photos and even all the mobile numbers stored in their mobile phones.
“However, the rule allows the government intelligence agencies to use this spyware technology. Ordinary individual or organisation does not have the right to buy this technology. A consortium of the world’s top 17 media outlets titled ‘Pegasus Project’ found that Israeli spyware was monitoring journalists, politicians, businessmen, human rights activists, as well as people in key government and private positions. However, Bangladesh is not on the list of 10 countries in the first data but India is in the South Asia category of the Pegasus Project. However, US daily The Washington Post, which is the partner of the project, says that it is also used in Bangladesh,” he added.
Though Bangladesh does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, he said, “Earlier this year, Qatar-based television channel Al Jazeera reported that Bangladesh had bought Imchi Catcher from Israel. But the Bangladesh government strongly protested this news. We believe that such a campaign is being carried out to tarnish the image of the Bangladesh government. However, there is no chance to see the news of Pegasus spyware lightly. This poses a challenge to the security, image and constitution of the country.”
He also said, “Article 43 (b) of the Bangladesh Constitution calls for ensuring the confidentiality of personal information of every citizen. We urge the government to look into whether this technology is being used to monitor important government officials, journalists, rights activists or political leaders in our country from other countries. And I urge the government to take appropriate steps to address this issue internationally.”
