Citizen Lab researcher: more victims of Pegasus hacking likely in Poland

Late last year, Canadian researchers said phones of a senior opposition politician and two prominent government critics were hacked using Pegasus software, leading to accusations Polish special services were undermining democratic norms. The findings were first reported by the Associated Press. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab project, told a Senate commission on Monday he had seen evidence of other infections and that he expected there to be other victims. A government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of Poland's ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS), said earlier this month that Poland had access to Pegasus, but dismissed suggestions it was used against political opponents as "utter nonsense". Poland's opposition-controlled upper house of parliament, the Senate, created the commission to look into the allegations of phone hacking, but it has no official investigative powers. The PiS-controlled lower house of parliament has resisted calls to launch a full investigative commission. No Senators from PiS took part in the commission on Monday. Citizen Lab says the phone of Senator Krzysztof Brejza was broken into 33 times in 2019 and data taken from the device. At the time, Brejza was running the election campaign of the largest opposition party, Civic Platform. Other victims Citizen Lab has identified are prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, a vocal critic of the government's judicial reforms, and Roman Giertych, a lawyer who has represented opposition figures.