India bypasses own procurement rules to buy Israeli phone-hacking technology

NEW DELHI — India has exempted an Israeli phone-hacking firm from domestic procurement rules, allowing government agencies to purchase advanced phone-extraction and surveillance technology.An investigation by the digital-rights group Internet Freedom Foundation revealed that Home Minister Amit Shah, a close confidante of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, signed off on waivers to “Make in India” rules in January, reports Al Jazeera.These exemptions cleared the way for forensic institutions to buy at least 422 foreign items, including software from Israeli company Cellebrite.Both federal agencies and states ruled by the opposition Congress party have acquired similar phone-cloning tools.A review of documents revealed that India’s expansive surveillance capabilities extend far beyond just cloning phones and extracting data without passwords to accessing cloud-based data from social media platforms – such as Instagram, X and Tinder – as well as data from connected devices such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home.Experts argued that India’s current laws offer no guardrails against overreaching surveillance and the data extractions happen in a legal grey zone.“It is clear that there is an expansion of India’s surveillance capabilities and it is becoming both wider and deeper,” said Vrinda Bhandari, a lawyer in the Supreme Court who works on digital rights and privacy issues.“It’s now easier to conduct mass surveillance rather than targeted, specific surveillance and also possible to do more intrusive surveillance,” she told Al Jazeera.The IFF reviewed a letter from India’s Ministry of Home Affairs dated January 7 in which Shah signed off on a wide-ranging, one-year waiver of “make in India” rules to clear a path for buying at least 422 forensic items.Under “make in India” procurement rules, preference must be given to eligible Indian manufacturers over foreign suppliers in awarding government contracts. However, the rules allow exemptions with the approval of the minister in charge of the procuring department.Another letter by the ministry dated January 20 showed Shah permitted the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to buy Israeli company Cellebrite’s Premium Tool on a three-year licence for about 50 million rupees ($529,947).Although an exemption for a company does not confirm whether a certain product was purchased by any government agency, it points to the range of forensic capabilities that opened up for procurement by Indian agencies.