India Eases Purchase of Phone-Hacking Technology, Giving Israeli Firm Cellebrite a Special Exemption
India's home ministry has made it easier for the country's investigative agencies to buy mobile phone hacking and digital surveillance technology. The Israeli technology firm Cellebrite has received a special exemption from the requirements of the 'Make in India' policy in this area.
The information emerged in an investigative report by the Qatar-based outlet Al Jazeera. According to the report, the home ministry's approval will allow various Indian investigative agencies to buy Cellebrite's phone hacking and digital forensic technology more easily.
According to the report, India's home minister Amit Shah personally approved the decision. The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), an organisation working on digital rights, investigated and found that at least 422 foreign technology products had received special exemptions for purchase by government forensic institutions.
In a letter signed by Amit Shah on 7 January, a broad one-year exemption was given for buying these technology products. Later, in another letter on 20 January, India's National Investigation Agency, the NIA, was permitted to buy Cellebrite's 'Premium Tool' on a three-year licence. Its price is about 50 million rupees, or 530,000 US dollars.
The IFF list mentions 118 technology products for digital and multimedia forensics. Among them are Cellebrite's Pathfinder, Inseyets On-Premise Pro and Inseyets Offline software.
Al Jazeera's report also said a Delhi Police tender sought software that could bypass the security systems of various operating systems to enter mobile phones and computers. It also sought the capability to collect browsing history, deleted files, VPN use information and data from various messaging apps from those devices.
In addition, another technology was sought with the capability to collect information from more than a hundred cloud services including Google, Apple, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram. According to the report, login information or tokens obtained from seized devices could also be used to enter those online services.
Digital rights activists and lawyers fear, however, that using such technology could put citizens' personal privacy at serious risk. According to lawyer Vrinda Bhandari, surveillance capability in India is growing ever broader and deeper, while the country has no specific law or adequate oversight for forcibly unlocking mobile phones or collecting personal information.
In 2017, India's Supreme Court recognised personal privacy as a fundamental right of citizens. Under the court's directions, any state interference with personal privacy must meet the conditions of a proper legal basis, a legitimate purpose and proportionality.
Earlier, there were allegations that the Pegasus spyware made by the Israeli firm NSO Group was used in India to place journalists, human rights activists and various important persons under surveillance. Now, making Cellebrite's technology easier to buy has started a fresh debate in the country over state surveillance and citizens' personal privacy.
