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Every breath you take, every move you make…

17 January 2020
Issue: 7870 / Categories: Features , Cyper espionage
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Flavia Kenyon discusses the dangers of cyber espionage & global insecurity
  • An unregulated market lacking legal scrutiny and transparency.
  • The impact of Pegasus: a powerful and pernicious spyware product.
  • Holding spyware companies accountable.

According to Privacy International more than five hundred private companies are currently selling spyware products to governments in a cyber security market expected to be worth $300bn by 2025, a market that is unregulated and lacks legal scrutiny and transparency.

Surveillance of individuals—often journalists, activists, opposition figures, critics, and others exercising their right to freedom of expression—has been shown to lead to arbitrary detention, oppression, sometimes to torture and possibly to extrajudicial killings.

The most powerful and pernicious spyware product on the market today is ‘Pegasus’,developed by Israel’s NSO Group. Earlier this year, UK private equity firm Novalpina Capital acquired majority ownership of the NSO group.

Pegasus

Pegasus penetrates security features in popular operating systems, such as WhatsApp, and silently installs the malware on a target’s phone without the user’s knowledge or permission.

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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