Leak points to lawyers and activists globally being at risk

Records show how dissidents and those who help them are among those under threat from NSO spyware

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A leak of phone data suggests human rights lawyers, activists and dissidents across the globe were selected as candidates for invasive surveillance through their phones.

Their mobile phone numbers appeared in leaked records, indicating they were selected by government clients of the Israeli NSO Group, which developed the Pegasus spyware.

The records were obtained by the nonprofit organisation Forbidden Stories and shared with a consortium of media outlets including the Guardian.

NSO has repeatedly said Pegasus, which can access all data on a device, and turn it into an audio or video recorder, is meant for use only against terrorists and serious criminals.

The selection of activists, dissidents and journalists by NSO clients paints a different picture, though one that campaigners will say was grimly predictable given the tool has been sold to some of the most repressive regimes.

The activists at risk from surveillance In Azerbaijan, where the longtime dictator Ilham Aliyev tolerates little dissent, numerous activists appear in the data. Some had their personal correspondence or intimate photographs published online or on television.

The phone numbers of six dissidents or activists in the country whose private correspondence was featured on a muckraking television programme in 2019 are listed in the leaked records.

Female activists are often targeted with sexual kompromat. In one particularly egregious case in 2019, intimate photographs of the civil society activist and journalist Fatima Movlamli, then 18, were leaked on a fake Facebook page.