Italian legislators say that Italy has used Spyware to direct phones from immigration activists, but not against journalist | Techcrunch

An Italian parliamentary committee confirmed that the Italian government used Spyware from the Israeli company Paragon to hack different activists who work to save immigrants at sea. However, the committee said that the investigation concluded that a prominent Italian journalist did not belong to the victims, so that important questions about the Spyware attacks had unanswered.

The parliamentary committee for the Security of the Republic, known as Copasir, a report published On Thursday, this concluded that a months of research into the use of Paragon’s Spyware, known as Graphite, throughout Italy. Israeli newspaper Haaretz first wrote about the report.

In January WhatsApp started sending notifications to around 90 of its users, with which they warned that they might be the target of the Paragon’s spyware. Several people in Italy emerged after receiving the reports, which gave a scandal in Italy that a long history of hosting spyware commendand that of her government own spyware usage And abuse.

Since then, Copasir has investigated the allegations with the aim of clarifying exactly what happened.

Copasir specifically investigated the targeting of Luca Casarini and Giuseppe Caccia, both of which work for Mediterranea save peopleAn Italian non -profit with the mission to save immigrants who try to cross the Mediterranean Sea. In both cases, the committee concluded that they were legally aimed at Italian intelligence services as part of investigations with regard to the alleged facilitation of illegal immigration to the country.

But the Copasir committee concluded that there was no evidence that Francesco Cancellato, a journalist who also received a report of WhatsApp who warned him that he had been a target of Paragon’s Spyware, was the target of the intelligence services of Italy.

The committee wrote that its representatives were able to interrogate the Spyware database of the intelligence agencies and audit logs for the telephone number of Cancellato and found no relevant records. The committee said that it also found no evidence of legal requests to spy on Cancellato from the best public prosecutor in the country, nor of the Department of Information for Security, or DisA top Italian government department that supervises the activities of the two intelligence services of the country, the Aise and AISI.

The report noted that Paragon has foreign government customers who may be able to focus on Italians, so that the door remains open that this can be how the targeting of the Cancellato phone can be explained. Copasir has not provided any evidence to support this theory.

Cancellato is the director of Fanpage.itAn Italian news website is that Known for various studies Including one on the youth wing of the extreme right-wing ruling party in Italy, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. This research showed that the members made in private racist remarks and sang fascist songs and slogans.

The report did not report Ciro Pellegrino, a colleague from Cancellato, who received a report from Apple at the end of April and said he was the target of the government pyware. It is unclear whether Pellegrino was the target of Paragon’s spyware, and the Apple report did not say.

The Italian government, as well as Copasir, did not respond to a request for comments, specifically asked about Cancellato and Pellegrino.

Cancellato responded to the report In an article published on FridayIn which he questioned Copasir’s conclusions about his case and asked for more and better statements.

“Case closed? Not at all,” wrote Cancellato.

For John Scott-Rilton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that investigates Spyware-Abuse-included the recent cases of abuse in Italy, it is determining who Cancellato focused on the most important question that remains unanswered by the report.

“This report creates a problem for paragon solutions because the report leaves the most politically sensitive matter unanswered: who focused on this journalist? This outcome cannot make Paragon happy,” Scott-Rilton told Techcrunch. “Because the case of Francesco Cancellato remains completely inexplicable, all eyes are back on paragon for an answer.”

Scott-Rilton also said that Citizen Lab is still investigating the case of Cancellato and analyzes its telephone and data. Cancellato also confirmed this to Techcrunch.

Paragon did not respond to a request for comment.

Copasir also investigated the cases of Mattia Ferrarithe chaplain on the rescue ship of Mediterranea that saves people; And David Yambiothe president and co-founder of the non-governmental organization Refugees in Libyawho is active in Italy. Copasir said it was not evidence that Ferrari was the target, but confirmed that there was evidence that Yambio had been a legal target of surveillance, although not with the spyware of Paragon.

Discovered new details through the research

As part of her research into the alleged use of Spyware by the Italian government, Copasir wanted to find so much information about the use of paragon in the country, with information from other government agencies, as well as Citizen Lab, and the owner of Whatsapp’s owner Meta.

According to the report, the National Anti-Mafia officer of Justice told Copasir that no public prosecutor in Italy had taken or used the Paragon’s spyware. (In Italy, the office of every local public prosecutor has a certain degree of freedom in obtaining spyware.) The military police of Carabinieri, the National Polizia di Stato and the Financial Crimes Agency Guardia di Finanza gave the same answer.

Paragon told Copasir that it had contracts with the two intelligence services of Italy, SIMPLE And Aisi. The report said that Copasir representatives visited the DIS, as well as the offices of the two agencies, and investigated the database of the spyware and audit logs to see how the agencies used the paragon spyware, including on whom they focused. The representatives concluded that there were no abuses with regard to the supervision of the people who have come as spyware targets in recent months.

The Copasir report also revealed new details on how the spyware system from Paragon works behind the scenes. Copasir said it was verified that in order to use the paragon’s spyware, an operator must log in with a username and password, and every implementation of the spyware leaves detailed logs behind a server who manages the customer and not accessible by paragon. But according to Copasir, the customer cannot remove any data from the audit logs on his servers.

The committee has also revealed details about the relationship between paragon and its Italian intelligence customers, Aise and Aisi, who said they have since withdrawn their contracts with paragon.

The Italian foreign intelligence agency Aise, which started using Graphite on January 23, 2024 after signing a contract a month earlier, used Paragon’s Spyware with the aim of investigating “illegal immigration, in search of fugitives, smuggling of fuels, counter -kentions, opponents, terrorism and organized effects”. ”

In addition, the report said that Aise focused on an “extremely limited” but non-specific number of telephone users and visited both real-time and stored communication that was sent via end-to-end coded apps.

Copasir said that AISI, the Interior Intelligence Agency of Italy, started to use Graphite earlier in 2023 and the contract now canceled would have expired on November 7, 2025. Just like Aise, Aisi graphite used in a small but not disclosed number of cases of acquiring real -time communication, while the cases are “a little more many” when it comes to be stored on a goals.

For every spyware implementation, the agencies said that according to the report it had the right legal approval.

Copasir said it had the chance to revise the contracts of Paragon with his Italian customers and to check whether there are clauses that prohibit the use of the spyware against journalists and human rights activists.

In March, after an investigation, Citizen Lab published a report on paragon that declared The governments of Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Israel and Singapore as likely customers of the Spywaremaker.

Last year, the American private equity giant AE Industrialy reportedly bought paragon for a deal that could reach $ 900 million.