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What happened: Israel’s Attorney General has nominated a team to investigate claims about the Israel Police’s use of NSO spyware to hack citizens’ mobile phones.

• Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has informed Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai of the investigation, to be led by Deputy Attorney General Amit Marari. Mandelblit asked Shabtai to hand over all warrants for tapping phones from 2020-2021 for the investigation.
• Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev has welcomed the investigation as necessary “to make sure there are no bad apples in the system”.
• Responding to the alleged illegal use of spyware, the Police said: “The use of technological tools acquired from external companies as well as those developed by the police is done in accordance with the law. For example, insofar as pertains to the use of technological tools for wiretapping, an application for a wiretapping warrant is submitted to an authorised court, and this [request] is reviewed by the court and approved first.”
• One institution that benefited from police surveillance is the Israel Tax Authority, which is given information by the police to conduct tax investigations that are intended to incriminate criminal organisations.
• A former senior official in the law-enforcement agencies said that the police cyber and SIGINT unit, which is responsible for operating spyware, serves as a contractor for numerous investigative and law enforcement services that rely on the information that it gathers.

Context: Earlier this week the Calcalist first reported that the police have used NSO spyware against Israeli civilians by exploiting a legal loophole and keeping the surveillance under tight secrecy, without oversight by a court or a judge.

• Police are alleged to have used spyware to search for evidence of bribery on the mobile phones of two incumbent mayors, to monitor the activities of people who participated Black Flag protests, as well as opponents of the Gay Pride Parade, a phone owned by a close associate to a senior politician suspected of corruption, and employees of a government company who were suspects of an investigation into fraud allegations.
• The Calcalist report cited the police’s alleged use of NSO’s Pegasus spyware. A senior law enforcement official has said other NSO spyware was used. The software was first purchased by the police in December 2013, during Yohanan Danino’s tenure as police commissioner, and became operational under Danino’s successor, Roni Alsheich.
• The police have denied the accusations that spyware was used to investigate innocent civilians, saying it only sought permission to gather evidence against a person suspected of committing a crime.
• Earlier this week, Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai said that he had ordered an investigation of all the cases described in the Calcalist report. He said: “The inquiry found that some of the cases [allegations] were incorrect. Among other things, these tools were not used against Black Flag demonstrators, mayors’ telephones and to surveil opponents of the Gay Pride Parade. That information is incorrect.”
• Shabtai added: “Regarding the use of enforcement measures in general, as stated, everything is done with necessary legal approval. The Israel Police does not use its advanced technological capabilities against civilians and innocent demonstrators.”
• Israeli commentators argue that legal permits required to tap into someone’s phone are based on antiquated laws that creates a gap between the legal establishment and the reality on the ground.
• The wiretapping law in Israel was ratified in 1979, before mobile phones were widespread and does not cover the technological capabilities of the modern era and permit such invasive surveillance of its citizens.

Looking ahead: The police are promoting legislation to expand its power to hack mobile phones by using spyware.

• The law currently allows police to conduct wiretaps and gather data from phones only in real time, whereas the new bill would also allow police to gather past data without requiring a judge’s authorisation.
• Yesterday Shabtai said any “isolated incident” in which the rules were violated would be addressed by “fully transparent” actions to fix the matter.