Citizen Lab found that former Member of the European Parliament Stelios Kouloglou was hacked with #Pegasus #spyware while serving on the PEGA committee, which investigated Pegasus and other spyware abuses in Europe. Citizen Lab found that the attackers could have had access to confidential documents and committee deliberations.
Saskia Bricmont, coordinator of the PEGA committee and co-chair of the Parliamentary Interest Group against the Illegal Use of Spyware, believes it is “ high time that the @EUCommission puts forward concrete proposals based on the recommendations issued by our committee of inquiry, starting with the introduction of very strict conditions for the use of spyware, and the creation of a European technology laboratory, modelled on Citizen Lab, to provide assistance to victims.”
https://citizenlab.ca/research/member-of-committee-investigating-spyware-hacked-with-pegasus/
Last year we unveiled that money from the European Investment Fund was used to finance #Paragon, another Israeli spyware company.
Several months after @apache_be revealed this investment, the European Investment Fund decided it will no longer provide funding to spyware companies based outside the EU.
But @edri EDRi believes that “no spyware company — regardless of whether it is Israeli, European, or from anywhere else – should receive public money from European taxpayers”.
@janwlrvn @apache_be @edri I am probably misunderstanding something, but why would European Investment Fund invest in a non-European company?
@elgregor "An EIF document designates Paragon Solutions as a final recipient that received support under the InnovFin Equity Facility for Early Stage (IFE). This financing instrument was launched as part of Horizon 2020, the EU's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation from 2014 to 2020. Israel participated in this program as an “associated country”, as well as in its successor, Horizon Europe."
https://apache.be/2025/10/01/european-investment-fund-eif-financed-israeli-spyware-company-paragon