Steven N.
The data protection authority’s investigation into the Pegasus surveillance scandal, which has gone through new twists and turns in recent days, seems to have run into a few roadblocks, reports HVG, and the head of the authority does even not know when it will wrap up.
Three months ago, the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (NAIH), headed by Attila Péterfalvi, began an investigation into the circumstances and legality of the use of the Pegasus spyware program in Hungary.
A month and a half after the launch of NAIH’s investigation, in the second half of September, the news outlet asked Péterfalvi when its report would be ready. The head of the authority said at that time that the investigation would be completed around the beginning of November.
After another month and a half, on November 2, HVG contacted Attila Péterfalvi again to inquire about the status of the investigation, but he said it could take another 1-2 weeks for them to complete it.
A week after that, HVG reporters asked Péterfalvi once more about the status of the case, but now he only says that the investigation is ongoing, and “at the moment I don’t even when it will end.”
The NAIH investigation began a few weeks after Direkt36 published an investigative report on Pegasus which claimed that the surveillance software was used by Hungarian state actors to spy on civilians through their electronic devices.
Meanwhile, important details on the case have emerged in recent days after Lajos Kósa, the Fidesz chairman of the National Defense and Law Enforcement Committee of the Parliament, admitted that the Hungarian state had purchased the product of the Israeli NSO company through the Ministry of the Interior.
[HVG]
