Apple pressured for accusing Indian government of hacking journalists

A Apple and the India They haven't been getting along very well lately. In October 2023, the company warned journalists and key members of the opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that their iPhones were being targeted with attacks. spyware orchestrated by groups linked to the cabinet. The government denies it. Now the case takes on new nuances: not only has Amnesty International confirmed Apple's accusations, having identified the Pegasus spyware on journalists' devices, but the government has also pressured the company to “take it easy”, which is being understood as an admission of fault.
Apple and India are reportedly at odds over the government hacking the iPhones of journalists and opponents (Credit: Ronaldo Gogoni/Meio Bit)

Apple vs. Apple India

Accusations that the Indian government hacks and spies on rivals' devices is not new. For years, allegations that Modi's cabinet (who, like a good populist leader, uses the public machinery to his advantage and has been systematically undermining critical and oppositional expressions in the press and academia) has been using Pegasus, a spyware developed by Israeli company NSO Group, to keep an eye on jurists, journalists, and opposition politicians. NSO never admitted to having done business with India, officially Pegasus was created to collect data from criminals' iPhones and Android devices (it is part of the Israeli and German police's anti-crime tools), but in practice it was identified in use by governments in countries such as Azerbaijan, Hungary, Armenia, Egypt and El Salvador, among others, against journalists and the opposition. It has also been used by Moroccan hackers against the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, in which the local government denies involvement. A member of BRICS, India is the largest country among those identified with the government using Pegasus against its own population. The first accusations date back to 2021, due to a Meta lawsuit for spying within WhatsApp. Data from journalists, ministers, journalists and opponents were even found in the NSO database; other cases include the monitoring of a former Supreme Court employee, who accused jurist Ranjan Gogoi, then Chief Justice of India, of sexual harassment. Narendra Modi's cabinet never admitted the use of Pegasus, but Apple not only had evidence that users of its devices were being hacked in the country, it also decided that it would not remain silent about it, and began sending alerts via email to potential targets such as parliamentarian and opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and members of his team, journalists Siddharth Varadarajan and Sriram Karri, and Samir Saran, president of the Observer Reaserch Foundation (ORF), among others. However, according to a report by The Washington Post, based on statements from close sources, one day after Apple sent out the direct mail with the warnings, authorities linked to Modi questioned the company about the veracity of the accusations, and opened an investigation against the apple , with some curious characteristics. Officially, the government's lawsuit against Apple by the Prime Minister's office over security issues of its devices; In the eyes of the public, the Cupertino giant would have fallen prey to the authorities for not ensuring the protection of its citizens' data. However, the process has a hidden side, the real motivation for the endeavor.
Tim Cook during the opening of the first Indian Apple Store in Mumbai, in April 2023 (Credit: Indranil Aditya/Bloomberg/Getty Images) According to sources, officials pressured Apple to “find a way” to soften the criticism and complaints made against the government of India, as they would be “furious” about the situation, and most likely, Narendra Modi too. The company would have been “advised” to find some excuse to “reduce the political impact” caused by sending the alerts to opponents and journalists, and to give an alternative reason why they had been issued, without blaming the government. The Indian officials' message would have angered Apple's top brass in Cupertino, but the company did not fully align with the demands of Modi's office. Although Apple initially issued a public statement saying that some of the alerts sent “could be false alarms”, that was all it did. Now Amnesty International, a human rights NGO, claims to have analyzed the iPhones of prominent Indian journalists, all critical of Modi, and found the Pegasus spyware on them, lending credibility to the previous reports. Donncha Ó Cearbhaill, head of the organization's Security Laboratory, states that the strategy is “yet another tool of oppression” by the government against dissidents and opponents, combined with “arrests under draconian laws, defamation campaigns, harassment, and intimidation”. Apple has two Apple Stores in India, one in Mumbai and the other in New Delhi, and intends to move 25% of the iPhone production line to the country, but it appears that Tim Cook and his team have no intention of sacrificing its users' trust in its products, subjecting itself to government orders to spy on their devices and affecting opposition members and journalists, just to grow. Of course there are cases and cases, it is likely that India will not have such a good deal for the company. In any case, the case illustrates the extent to which the Indian government is willing not only to stand in the way of opponents and critics of Narendra Modi, but also to cover up everything surrounding its actions and cover its tracks. Unfortunately for those involved, Apple didn't want to play along this time. Source: The Washington Post, Amnesty International