Explained |  Is there clarity on Pegasus malware report?

What has the technical committee told the Supreme Court? What is the stand of the Union government? 

The story so far: The Supreme Court on August 25 said that the panel that it had constituted to look into the Pegasus issue had found no conclusive evidence of the Israeli-origin spyware on the 29 phones it examined. The Court, which said it was studying the detailed reported from the panel, also noted that the Central government had continued the stance that it had taken in front of the court — of not cooperating with the probe — with the panel too.

The Supreme Court had constituted the panel on October 27 last year after several pleas came before it for a probe into allegations that Central agencies had used Pegasus to spy on politicians, journalists and others. The Centre had, at that time, refused to submit a detailed affidavit on the allegations, as asked for by the court.

The panel consists of a three-member technical committee supervised by retired Justice R.V Raveendran. The members are Naveen Kumar Chaudhary of National Forensic Sciences University in Gandhinagar; Prabaharan P of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Kerala, and Ashwin Anil Gumaste of IIT-Bombay. The panel informed the court in an interim report in May this year that it had come up with its own protocols and software to test phones for Pegasus infection.

The then Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana, who was heading the three-judge Bench on the case, stated during the latest hearing that the Bench had read parts of the sealed report and would pursue a detailed reading soon.

The panel had been working on two key aspects: first, the technical details of the probe into the allegations of Pegasus use; and second, the enhancement of the current laws surrounding digital surveillance, cyber security, and privacy rights.

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On the first aspect, as per the CJI’s reading of the report, five of the 29 phones that were submitted for examination had shown signs of malware infection, but not necessarily Pegasus.