The tool allows you to access messages, emails, photos, videos, audio files and other information, in addition to activating the microphone and the phone camera.| Photo: Big Stock
The Canadian Mounted Police uses spy software to inspect cell phones in investigations that affect national security or serious crimes, as revealed by the institution in documents submitted to the Canadian Parliament.
According to the Politico portal, this is the first time that the police have publicly acknowledged the use of spyware, a tool that has been questioned for its use in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Mexico and El Salvador to monitor opposition politicians, activists and journalists. Few democratic countries publicly recognize the use of this program by their security forces.
This tool allows you to access text messages, emails, photographs, videos, audio files and other information, as well as enabling your phone’s microphone and camera to record sound and images without the owner’s knowledge, which exceeds the capabilities of traditional telephone intercepts.
The Canadian Mounted Police has also indicated that it uses the spyware
with judicial authorization. Although the documents do not indicate whether the corporation uses the Pegasus program for cell phone spying, the described operation is identical to the tool of the Israeli company NSO.
The Canadian research center Citizen Lab, in a report released in April, denounced that Pegasus has been used to spy on pro-independence politicians in Catalonia. Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert said on Twitter on Wednesday that it is “great news” to reveal that the Mounted Police uses spyware. Deibert added that Canada lacks a policy on the domestic or international use of “spyware
mercenary” and that is needed a “national debate”.
