Workers at Israeli surveillance firm sue Facebook for blocking private accounts
A group of employees from Israeli surveillance firm NSO
Group filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc on Tuesday, saying the social media
giant had unfairly blocked their private accounts when it sued NSO last month.
Messaging service WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, had
accused NSO in its own legal action filed in California last month of helping
government spies break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users across four
continents in a hacking spree whose targets included diplomats, political
dissidents, journalists and senior government officials.
The NSO employees said their Facebook and Instagram
accounts, and those of former workers and family members, had been blocked.
They petitioned the Tel Aviv District Court to order Facebook to unblock the
accounts, which they claim was done abruptly and without notice.
Facebook said in a statement that it had disabled
"relevant accounts" after attributing a "sophisticated
cyber-attack" to NSO Group and its employees. Those actions "continue
to be necessary for security reasons, including preventing additional
attacks," the company said.
It added that it had re-enabled some accounts through an
appeals process.
In their statement, the NSO employees said Facebook had imposed
a "collective punishment" by choosing to block their private accounts
due to the legal process Facebook is conducting against NSO. They also said
their lawsuit came only after they made repeated requests to Facebook that went
unanswered.
"Blocking our private accounts is a hurtful and unjust
move by Facebook," the statement said. "The idea that personal data
was searched for and used is very disturbing to us".
The employees said they would continue to "help
governments around the world prevent crime and terrorism through the technology
we are developing".
WhatsApp accused NSO of facilitating government hacking
sprees in 20 countries. Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain were the
only countries identified.
NSO, founded in 2009, denies the allegations.
Speaking at a technology conference in Tel Aviv on Monday,
its president, Shiri Dolev, defended her company, saying NSO technologies made
the world safer. Dolev also said she wished NSO could talk openly about the
role it plays in helping law enforcement agencies catch terrorists.
"Terrorists and criminals use the social platforms and
apps we all use every day...," she said.
Dolev added that NSO does not operate the technology nor
hack phones. "We develop the technology which we sell exclusively to
government intelligence agencies," she said
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