On 11 March 2026, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) delivered an intervention during the 61st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, in the framework of the Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy. The organizations highlighted transnational repression targeting dissidents abroad through digital surveillance tools and spyware programs, emphasizing that the use of such technologies poses a serious threat to the right to privacy and freedom of expression. The NGOs called for strengthened international accountability and strict regulations on the use of spyware to protect activists and dissidents, particularly those living in exile.
In January 2026, the High Court of England and Wales found that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ordered and directed the hacking of London-based dissident Ghanem al-Masarir’s electronic device through the deployment of the Pegasus spyware program, a surveillance tool developed by NSO Group.
The Court’s judgment was clear: A state reached across borders, into the life of a person in exile completely beyond their legal jurisdiction, and converted a mobile phone into an instrument of intimidation and state-sanctioned reprisal.
This is not an abstract privacy violation. It is transnational repression executed through digital means. When a government can penetrate the device of a critic living abroad, the promise of asylum thins. The right to privacy becomes conditional. Speech that was once safe in a country that promised that safety becomes risk.
The finding against Saudi Arabia establishes, vitally, that digital intrusion is justiciable, attributable, and compensable. Yet civil damages after years of litigation are an insufficient safeguard. Victims cannot shoulder the burden of proving state hacking one case at a time.
We urge the Special Rapporteur to treat mercenary spyware as a threat to democratic space, and to call for binding procurement controls, mandatory victim notification, and cross-border accountability mechanisms. In all contexts, and especially in exile, privacy must be protected.
