After leaving Giora Eiland on Israel's National Security Council, he has become an advisor to several private companies that, like the company NSO Group, sell security solutions.
The purpose of the program, Pegasus, developed by the NSO Group is for intelligence services to use it to spy on terrorists and criminals.
But analyzes show that even journalists, lawyers and politicians may have been targets when the program was secretly installed on their phones by various regimes.
- What has emerged is that some countries have used the Pegasus program in this way is of course a scandal, he says.
But has the Israeli government been aware of this?
-
That this specific software has been sold to these countries is something that not only they have known about but also approved.
"Embarrassing for the company"
However, he points out that an approval is not the same as that the program may be used to spy on people who may be uncomfortable for a country.
But Giora Eiland is calling for more information.
He thinks that representatives of the NSO Group, who deny that their programs were used to spy on politicians, have been vague in their statements.
- It is embarrassing for the company what happened and I think they risk losing financially if, for example, western countries distance themselves and do not want to buy their services, he says.
The government wants to review
On Wednesday, the Israeli government decided to appoint a commission to investigate allegations of misuse of the monitoring program.