New Delhi: The expert committee appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the alleged use of Pegasus spyware against journalists, opposition politicians, judges and others, has sought comments from the public on 11 queries pertaining to the issue until March 31, the Hindustan Times reported. The committee, led by former Supreme Court Justice R.V. Raveendran, was set up on October 27 last year after the top court noted that in the absence of any “specific denial” of the use of Pegasus by the Union government, the court had no option but to set up an independent committee to probe the matter.The three-member technical committee that is advising the investigation includes Naveen Kumar Chaudhary, professor of cyber security and digital forensics and dean of the National Forensic Sciences University at Gandhinagar, Gujarat; Prabaharan P., professor at the School of Engineering at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in Kerala; and Ashwin Anil Gumaste, Institute Chair Associate Professor of computer science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.Also read: Pegasus: SC Panel Asks Petitioners to Submit Personal Devices for ‘Technical Evaluation’The committee drafted a form with 11 queries to the public, which include:1. Whether the existing boundaries of state surveillance of citizens’ personal or private communications, for the purposes of national security, maintaining public order and so on, are well defined and understood; and if there are other purposes for which state surveillance may be justified.2. Whether procedures currently defined under the Telegraph Act, 1885 and the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 (including executive oversight measures) are sufficient to prevent the excessive routine use, misuse or abuse of state surveillance justified using the above mentioned reasons.3. Whether there should be special safeguards for specific categories of persons.4. To what extent should sovereign immunity and access be afforded for acts of hacking digital devices and networks, technology backdoors, decryption of private records and legal mandates for technology or data intermediaries to share users’ data.5. Whether the state should be required to disclose surveillance technology that it has access to or that it has used; who this information should be disclosed to and whether this information should come under the purview of the Right to Information Act.Moreover, the form seeks suggestions for ways to strengthen cyber security; setting up a grievance redressal mechanism for a person subjected to state surveillance; laws and safeguards to strengthen cyber security; methods of balancing individual rights with national security interests; ways to strengthen the procedures for state agencies to use surveillance and so on.Also read: Mamata Banerjee Claims Her Govt Was Offered Pegasus Spyware, Turned It DownIn July last year, The Wire was part of the Pegasus Project, a media consortium consisting of 17 international media organisations, which had revealed a list of potential targets of Pegasus, a spyware created by Israeli technology firm, the NSO Group.This snoop list contained the names of several Indian journalists, activists, human rights defenders, judges, opposition politicians, and more as being potential targets of the spyware.Importantly, it was revealed that the spyware was only sold to governments and not to private individuals.
