07/01/2022 (Agence Europe) – Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s PiS party, acknowledged that the country had purchased Pegasus spyware from Israeli manufacturer NSO Group, but denied that it was being used to target their political opponents, the Associated Press reported on Friday 7 January. In an interview, he noted that Pegasus is now used by secret services in many countries and “represents a technological advance over previous surveillance systems, which did not allow services to monitor encrypted messages”. “It would be terrible if Polish services did not have access to this kind of tool”, Kaczyński said. Three people critical of the Polish government were allegedly spied on with NSO’s Pegasus spyware, including Senator Krzysztof Brejza, who was spied on in 2019 while leading the opposition’s campaign for the parliamentary elections. (SP)