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Mexico spyware scandal: Opposition politicians 'targeted'

29 June 2017 Latin America & Caribbean

AFP
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 Three senior opposition politicians in Mexico have been targeted by spyware on their
mobile phones, researchers say.

An internet watchdog based in Canada, Citizen Lab, said the surveillance software is only sold to
governments.

Last week, Citizen Lab also said that 12 journalists and human rights lawyers had been targeted.

At the time, the Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, described accusations that the
government was involved as false.

Mr Peña Nieto said surveillance software was only used for matters of national security and for
fighting organised crime.

He added that he had ordered an investigation by the attorney general's office.

Citizen Lab said the head of the Conservative National Action Party (PAN), Ricardo Anaya, a
PAN Senator, Roberto Gil Zuarth, and the party's communications secretary, Fernando
Rodriguez, were targeted.

"There is strong circumstantial evidence implicating the government of Mexico", the watchdog
said.

The software, known as Pegasus, was sold to Mexican federal agencies by the Israeli company
NSO Group on the condition that it only be used to investigate criminals and terrorists.

It is usually sent in a text message to a smartphone.

If the person taps on it, the spyware is installed, and huge amounts of private data - text
messages, photos, emails, location data, even what is being picked up by the device's
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 microphone and camera - are hacked.

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Mexican president denies spying on journalists, lawyers and activists

23 June 2017

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 30 June 2017

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