In a webinar on Spyware, Surveillance, and Civil Liberties, ImpACT International for Human Rights Policies raised the alarm regarding the Pegasus spyware’s threat to civil liberties, democracy, and freedoms. People’s lives “are illicitly pursued by governments or oligarchs who can access for sale surveillance technology,” ImpACT International said.
ImpACT’s webinar brought together established human rights activists and defenders from various human rights organizations to discuss this matter and chart a way forward.
Speakers at the Webinar spoke extensively on the danger of this spyware on innocent people’s lives, especially journalists and human rights activists.
ImpACT International calls on concerned citizens to rally against these dangerous intrusions that benefit already overly powerful politicians.
The London-based think tank emphasized that the first step into neutralizing the threat of spyware companies is to inform the public about these systems’ threat to freedom and democracy. Moreover, Political candidates and parties should pledge the spyware industry to outlaw.
The speakers at the webinar said that legislators should ban the development, transmission, marketing, sale, and trade in this freedom killing viruses.
“Criminal sanctions against individuals involved must back up contravention of any of the above points, and heavy fines shall be levelled against the entities associated with those actions.”
The speakers also proposed that the United Nations agency responsible for electronic communication should enforce anti-spyware codes of practice and legislation on participating member states, businesses, and other organizations.
“Those states and non-governmental organizations that do not comply and still engage in that practice should be isolated from international communications networks.”
ImpACT also highlighted the need for deploying anti-trust lawsuits and anti-monopoly investigations and legislation against big tech social media companies to limit their power and ability to collect and collate personal data.
Finally, Robert Oulds, Moderator of the symposium webinar and Executive Director of ImpACT International, said: “Action is needed now before the surveillance state becomes embedded in our society. This battle unites all peoples across all lands who face the same threat to their personal information and security from any number of regimes. Even their own ‘democratic’ governments are not beyond snooping and spying on their citizens.”
