In an open letter published on Tuesday 3 September, around thirty associations representing civil society and journalists call on the European Commission to adopt a new, more restrictive legislative framework to “totally ban the development and sale of commercial spyware by private companies”.
The associations point to the “troubling precedent” set by the ‘Media Freedom Act’, criticised for the exception introduced to the ban on surveillance of journalists within the EU (see EUROPE 13315/6), and claim that the majority of EU Member States have purchased spyware, “used to illegally and arbitrarily surveil journalists, human rights defenders and politicians within the EU”.
In this context, the signatories call for legislation that “includes an EU-wide ban on the production, export and import, sale, acquisition, transfer, maintenance and use of spyware” to put an end to the “abuse of power by Member States”.
See the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/dbb (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)