Pegasus: The Law May Permit the State to Intercept Phones but Not to Weaponise Them by Soutik Banerjeehttps://thewire.in/law/pegasus-our-law-permits-the-state-to-intercept-phones-but-not-to-weaponise-them 18/Aug/2021
The distinction between intercepting information sent through a phone and a phone working as a spy cam to record one’s actions and communications which were not carried out through the said device is crucial.
While the government is suggesting that any public discussion on the use of Pegasus may pose a threat to national security – the CJI has said that the court will be mindful of this – that in itself does not prevent a discussion on the legal regime of surveillance in India and whether the use of Pegasus would fall within or without the confines of the law.
Rule 2(f) of the Information Technology (Procedure for Safeguards for Interception, Monitoring and Decryption of Information) Rules, 2009, which were passed in furtherance of Section 69 of the IT Act which provides power to issue directions for interception, decryption or monitoring of information.
Interception is defined to mean the acquisition of the contents of any information so as to make the contents of the information available to any person other than the sender, recipient or intended recipient of the communication. Thus, it is amply clear that ‘interception’ can only be done of the contents of information that forms part of some ‘communication’ through a computer resource, and not of actions and conversations that simply happen to be near a computer resource.