Opposition members on Wednesday urged the Parliamentary Panel on Information Technology to probe the alleged hacking of some of their iPhones, while a Lok Sabha member from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) argued that only the government, and not a parliamentary panel, had the jurisdiction to investigate the matter.
On Tuesday, opposition leaders had warned some of them that they had received an alert from Apple warning them of “state-sponsored attackers trying to remotely compromise their iPhones” and alleged government hacking. Union IT and Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had dismissed the allegation but assured a thorough investigation.
On Wednesday, Congress Lok Sabha member Karti Chidambaram, in a letter to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology chairman Prataprao Jadhav, said the panel should call the people who received Apple’s warning message, as well as representatives of the company at the meeting. Chidambaram is a member of the panel.
However, BJP Lok Sabha MP Nishikant Dubey argued that the parliamentary panel had no jurisdiction to deal with the issue of Apple’s warning message as the matter falls under the jurisdiction of the government as per Lok Sabha rules. Dubey is also a member of the panel.
Posting on X in Hindi, Dubey said: “The country does not rule by applying pressure by making statements in newspapers. The Standing Committee on Information and Telecommunications is no longer headed by Shashi Tharoor and headed by Rahul Gandhi (both Congress leaders). This committee is governed by the rules of the Lok Sabha.” As per the rules of the Lok Sabha, the investigation into Apple’s warning to its subscribers falls under the jurisdiction of the central government, while their iPhones can be checked by the state police for further verification of allegations, he claimed. “Our committee, of which I am also a member, cannot hold a meeting on this issue,” Dubey said.
Prataprao Jadhav, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, told PTI that the panel would take action if anyone reported the issue to the panel.
In a related development, Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha member Mahua Moitra wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Wednesday, flagging alerts received by several opposition leaders about ‘state-sponsored’ attacks on their iPhones , and urged him to provide them with protection so they could continue to do their work. duties. This “illegal government surveillance” is the worst attack on the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, she said.
Moitra said the threat was “doubly shocking in light of the Pegasus software (sold only to governments) that was used to compromise the devices of several members of the opposition, dissenting journalists and members of civil society during 2019-2021 endanger.” “Despite the opposition raising this issue in the House of Representatives, no debate was allowed and no conclusive report was submitted by any agency,” she said. Moitra said international organizations such as ‘Access Now’ and ‘Citizen Lab’ confirmed the validity of Apple’s threat reports in September and gave it “tremendous credibility”.