Pegasus: Govt has no plans to ban NSO Group, says IT Ministry in Parliament

India is not planning to ban the Israel-based NSO Group, whose Pegasus software has been at the centre of several surveillance controversies over the last couple of years, the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology said today in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

Chandrashekhar was responding to Samajwadi Party MPs Vishambhar Prasad Nishad and Sukhram Singh Yadav's questions asking the government whether the US has blacklisted NSO Group and Candiru for providing Pegasus spyware which has been maliciously used to target journalists, embassy workers and activists.

Chandrashekhar said in a written response that "no such information is available in the Ministry".

"There is no proposal for banning any group named "NSO group," he said in response to whether India was planning to ban NSO Group too.

The US in November blacklisted the NSO Group for use of its Pegasus spyware.

Earlier this year, investigations into phones that might have been compromised by governments using NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware technology suggested present and former heads of states of many countries, including Egypt, Belgium, France, Iraq, Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Uganda, Yemen, South Africa, Morocco, might have been on the list. In India, the names included political figures, journalists, ministers, and others.

Meta-owned WhatsApp had sued the NSO Group in 2019 for a global breach that impacted 121 Indians, among others.