Representatives of ten civil society organizations filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons in the BIA and the police because they phones of activists and journalists unlocked and "infected" with spyware, the portal writes 021. rs.
Research by BIRN and Amnesty International's forensic analysis showed that the BIA, using the Israeli Cellebrite technology, unlocked the phones of the activists it called or brought in for interviews, and then inserted the domestic spy program NoviSpy into those devices.
They didn't just stop at collecting messages and contacts - they went into private photos, followed families, turned on cameras and microphones.
The representative of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights (BCBP), Dušan Pokuševski, specified that the criminal complaint against "NN persons" was submitted to the BIA and the police due to suspicion of three criminal acts, namely the unauthorized collection of personal data, the creation and introduction of computer viruses and unauthorized access to protected computer, computer network and electronic data processing.
According to him, the application is a test for the authorities to see how ready they are to examine the evidence, as well as each specific case, especially since continuous and extensive spying on journalists and activists is suspected.
The Ministry of Interior denies the allegations.
However, Pokuševski states that the tone with which the Ministry of Internal Affairs denied such allegations makes dialogue on this impossible, but he also said that today's address by the civil sector should be understood as an invitation to approach this topic as seriously as possible.
He said that the civil sector also submitted requests that the Protector of Citizens and the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection initiate proceedings.
A letter was sent to the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, and the information was also submitted to the special procedures body of the UN Human Rights Council.
Source: 021.rs/BIRN
