Sophisticated spyware like Pegasus, which bypasses encryption and takes full control of the victim’s phone, including access to photos, messages, and contacts, as well as the phone’s camera and microphone, represents an existential threat to journalists and media freedom globally. Such spyware jeopardizes journalists’ ability to safely do their work and protect the confidentiality of their sources. Civil society has documented that it can also facilitate domestic and transnational repression and serious human rights violations, including torture, enforced disappearance, and extrajudicial killings, such as the murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. UN officials, the European Parliament, the European Data Protection Supervisor, and civil society actors from around the world have widely condemned the use of spyware against journalists and human rights defenders. The U.S. government has placed NSO Group and other spyware makers on its Entity List and has banned the federal government from using certain commercial spyware due to the severe human rights and national security risks. The International Committee for Red Cross and Red Crescent (ICRC) experts have stated that the use of spyware against civilians in a context of conflict “exposes civilians to harm, affects their rights, safety, and dignity.” // Call for action ALL STATES RUSSIA All States ➡️ Implement an immediate moratorium on the export, sale, transfer, servicing, and use of targeted digital surveillance technologies until rigorous human rights safeguards are put in place to regulate such practices; ➡️ Where there is evidence that commercial spyware technology facilitates or enables human rights abuses, implement a ban on said technology and its vendors; ➡️ Hold the companies who develop and distribute these technologies, and their investors, accountable for their failure to respect human rights and for the role they play in enabling abusive end uses, and demand transparency from said companies around their clients and practices, in particular regarding their data collection and processing practices; ➡️ Reaffirm protections for all journalists and media workers and safeguard press freedom, by recognizing that journalists and media workers are not legitimate surveillance targets for practicing their work; ➡️ Ensure prompt, impartial, and independent investigation into the hacking allegations and establish accountability and remedy mechanisms for surveillance victims; ➡️ Fully cooperate with European Court of Human Rights, the UN, and all regional and international investigative bodies and accountability mechanisms with respect to investigation of Pegasus hacking and other unlawful surveillance; ➡️ Impose sanctions on NSO, its staff, and all of their technologies as a threat to human rights, media freedom, peace, and security.