Pegasus data supervised, monitored by Israeli MoD

This was made clear by an Israeli court in its judgment on a request to suspend the license given to NSO to export Pegasus.

New Delhi: All the data collected by the spying software Pegasus, owned by the Tel Aviv, Israel, based NSO group, is closely “supervised’ and “monitored” by Israeli officials, including those from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
This was made explicitly clear by an Israeli court on 12 July 2020 while giving its judgment on a request brought by Amnesty International and 29 other individuals and organizations to suspend the license given by Israeli MoD to NSO to export Pegasus to its clients in view of the misuse of the spying application to hack into the mobile phones of journalists and activists.
Judge Rachel Barkai of Tel Aviv district court, while refusing to accept the plea made by Amnesty and the 29 other petitioners, stated that she was “satisfied” that the respondents in the case, including NSO, were conducting their duties with “utmost care”. The said hearing was conducted behind closed doors on the request of the Israeli MoD.
The other respondents in the case were: The Head of the Defense Export Supervision Division, Ministry of Defence, Israel, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Ministry of Defense and NSO group.
It is pertinent to mention that the NSO group, which is represented across the world by the highly influential Mercury Public Affairs, a Washington-based public strategy firm, was started in 2010 by former Israeli special forces men, on the “aid” and “advice” of European intelligence agencies to collect information from across the world, but especially Asian and Middle-East countries.
“In brief I will say that, from all of the statements brought before me by respondents 1-4, I became convinced that the control process and the handling of defense marketing and/or export license requests is a sensitive and rigorous process, during which export license requests are thoroughly examined by the various defense agencies that deal with national security and political matters, and with technological and other aspects,” the judge wrote in her judgment.
Significantly, the judge, on the basis of the submission made by the Israeli officials in the court, arrived at the conclusion that even after the license has been granted, the MoD continues to be involved in the activities of the NSO.
“A license is granted after completion of a rigorous process, and after the license is granted, the authority undertakes close supervision and monitoring, and if necessary, and if it was found that use was made in violation of the license conditions, and in particular in cases of human rights violations, steps are taken to cancel or suspend the defense export license,” the judgment reads, while adding, “I am satisfied that respondents conduct their activities with the utmost care prior to granting a marketing and/or export license and afterwards, the licensee is subject to close monitoring by DECA, which exhibits an elevated sensitivity to human rights violations.” The Defence Export Control Agency (DECA) is a body under the Israeli Ministry of Defence.