JAKARTA An Italian investigative journalist is the latest target of spy tools (spyware) made by a surveillance company from the United States, Paragon. This was reported by the internet supervisory group, Citizen Lab, on Thursday 12 June.
This finding prolongs the surveillance scandal that has rocked the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and made relations between the Italian government and Paragon officially end.
In its report, Citizen Lab revealed that the iPhone belonging to journalist Ciro Pellegrino showed evidence that it had been targeted by Paragon's advanced spyware. Pellegrino is a journalist from online media, Fanpage, who was previously in the spotlight after its editor-in-chief, Francesco Cancellato, received a warning from WhatsApp in January 2025 that he had also been the target of the same spyware.
Fanpage is widely known for its critical reports against Meloni's administration, including an investigation linking Meloni's party's young wings to neo-Nazi activities. Allegations that Fanpage journalists including Pellegrino "have been monitored, sparking widespread anger and controversy in Italy.
Pada Senin sebelumnya, pemerintah Italia dan Paragon mengumumkan bahwa mereka telah mengakhiri kerja sama, meskipun masing-masing pihak memberikan versi berbeda tentang siapa yang memutus hubungan terlebih dahulu.
Paragon referred to an earlier statement to Israeli media, Haaretz, that it had offered the Italian government a way to verify whether their system was used against Cancellato, but the offer was rejected by the Italian side.
Italian government officials have not yet responded to Citizen Lab's latest report.
In a short message to Reuters, Pellegrino called this discovery something 'terrible'. He said that his phone was a black box of my life, which contained everything from personal and health data to journalistic sources.
SEE ALSO:
Earlier, an Italian parliamentary panel reported that the state intelligence service had used tools from Paragon to tap communications by migrant rescue activists at sea as part of a legal investigation. However, the panel stated that it had found no evidence that it was used against Fanpage journalists such as Cancellato.
However, the fact that Cancellato's co-workers were also targeted actually raises new doubts about the seriousness and completeness of parliamentary investigations. Natalia Krapiva, senior lawyer from human rights organization Access Now who accompanies spyware victims, said that these latest findings raised serious doubts about the feasibility of the investigation.
The parliamentary panel, which stated it was still open to the possibility of continuing its investigation, has not yet responded to requests for comment.
In the same report, Citizen Lab also mentioned that another European journalist was a victim of Paragon spyware, although he did not provide further information regarding the identity or context of the wiretapping. The University-based Citizen Lab also declined to answer further questions regarding this case.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
