When journalists can’t protect themselves or their sources, everyone’s right to information is at risk. Ahead of Data Privacy Day on Sunday, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) highlighting the ever-present threat of surveillance that journalists face today.
Just this week, CPJ called again for an immediate moratorium on the sale of spyware technology after the phones of two Togolese journalists were found to have been infected with Pegasus spyware in 2021. Both journalists currently face criminal prosecution for their work and told CPJ they were surprised to learn they had been targeted.
And in Ukraine, staff members of the investigative outlet Bihus.info found that their phones were allegedly wiretapped and monitored for about a year. The wiretapping was revealed when a video of the staff at a New Year’s party alongside recorded phone conversations was published on YouTube.
These incidents are part of an ongoing pattern. Last year, CPJ spoke to a victim of state-sponsored spyware about the experience of finding out her phone had been monitored: Galina Timchenko, head of independent Russian news website Meduza and CPJ’s 2022 Gwen Ifill Awardee. Her phone was infected by Pegasus surveillance spyware shortly after the Russian government designated her outlet as an “undesirable” organization.
The violation of her privacy sickened her. “I feel like I am naked in the street,” she told CPJ. Research by CPJ and other organizations shows sophisticated spyware products marketed to governments to fight crime have been used to target the press, posing an existential crisis for journalism and press freedom around the world.
Journalists still surveilled around the world ahead of Data Privacy Day
