Tusk calls Poland’s Pegasus affair a “crime against the state” after prosecutors find NSO had technical access to surveillance data

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has condemned the former government’s use of Pegasus spyware after prosecutors found that data collected through the system left Poland and that its Israeli maker, NSO Group, had technical access to surveillance material. TVP World reported that Tusk called the affair “one of the biggest scandals” in Poland since the fall of communism.

Prosecutors said the data passed through servers in different parts of the world on a network managed by NSO and outside the control of Poland’s Central Anti-Corruption Bureau. They said investigators could not determine whether NSO actually accessed material from specific surveillance operations.

Tusk accused the previous government of exposing the private information of thousands of Polish citizens without adequate oversight. He said the findings showed the authorities had used a system they did not fully control.

Poland’s former Law and Justice government bought Pegasus from NSO Group in 2017. The current investigation concerns the spyware’s use under that administration.