To,
Shri Shashi Tharoor,
Honorable Chairperson,
Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT,
Parliament House, New Delhi.
[email protected]

Sub: Request for Interim Report on the issue of Pegasus spyware

Dear Chairperson,

I am writing this letter representing the Free Software Movement of India, a national coalition of free software and digital rights movements across India. We are grateful for the work your committee is doing to question officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and Department of Telecommunications on the issue of citizen security related to the Pegasus spyware. As such the standing committee in the past has already conducted hearings related to this exact matter on 13-12-2019. It also summoned officials of Whatsapp, which was involved in the first incident related to Pegasus spyware.

It is important for the general public to know what these companies and officials of various ministries are informing your committee. As a practice, the parliamentary standing committee of IT publishes all the submissions part of its reports. But over the last few years, there is a lack of information to the general public on several of the committee deliberations. The committee has already conducted few hearings related to the Pegasus spyware and is further hearing the officials of Government of India on 28-07-21. I humbly request your committee to produce an interim report at the earliest to inform the general public about the actions taken by the government and the committee. This issue is a matter of national importance and I request the committee to not delay publication of an interim report in case the committee takes longer time for the final report .

With Regards,
Kiran Chandra,
General Secretary,
Free Software Movement of India.