{"id":42476,"date":"2025-09-04T06:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/42476\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T06:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:21:07","slug":"garda-siochana-paid-substantial-sums-to-israeli-spyware-firm-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/42476\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na paid substantial sums to Israeli spyware firm \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na\u2019s<\/a> intelligence section paid substantial sums of money to an Israeli spyware company with a history of doing business with repressive regimes.<\/p>\n

Cognyte Technologies, which is headquartered in Israel<\/a> and has close ties to the Israeli security services, manufactures a range of espionage technology, including data and wiretapping tools. <\/p>\n

Its technology has been used to target journalists, politicians and minority groups around the world.<\/p>\n

While under the control of a previous parent company, it sold covert surveillance technology to Myanmar, a month before the 2021 coup in the country, despite an Israeli ban on sales to the regime.<\/p>\n

The company has also sold spyware to the security service in South Sudan and to police agencies in Azerbaijan and Indonesia, where it was used to track members of the LGBT community, some of which were later arrested and tortured, according to Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Garda made two payments to Cognyte for \u20ac213,141 and \u20ac63,292. The payments were made in the second quarter of the year, shortly before then t\u00e1naiste and minister for defence Miche\u00e1l Martin ordered his department to cease purchases of Israeli military equipment<\/a>, citing a court ruling that found it had illegally annexed territory in Palestine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Details of the \u20ac276,000 payment are contained in the Garda\u2019s purchasing records. The records only deal with purchases of more than \u20ac20,000, meaning additional payments may have been made.<\/p>\n

It is not known if payments to Cognyte have continued. Records for 2025 have not been released.<\/p>\n

A Freedom of Information Act request for further details was refused on national security grounds. However, the response to the request confirmed the purchases were made by the Garda\u2019s Security and Intelligence Section, which oversees surveillance operations and other sensitive policing matters.<\/p>\n

In response to queries, Garda headquarters said it \u201cdoes not comment on matters of national security, including any matters pertaining to procurement of technology or costs associated with matters of national security\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cognyte was originally part of Verint Systems before being spun out as an independent company in 2021.<\/p>\n

However, controversy has continued to follow the Israel-headquartered company, which claims it has 1,000 clients in 100 countries.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the spin-off, Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, announced it was removing 100 accounts linked to Cognyte, accusing it of use fake accounts for social engineering and data-collection purposes.<\/p>\n

According to Meta, Cognyte\u2019s targets \u201cincluded journalists and politicians around the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meta said it identified customers \u201cin Israel, Serbia, Colombia, Kenya, Morocco, Mexico, Jordan, Thailand and Indonesia\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Israel\u2019s secret intelligence operations in Iran: Hacked phones, deep-cover agents and covert warehousesOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The Brazilian intelligence service used a secret Cognyte surveillance tool during the administration of president Jair Bolsonaro to track the location of citizens without official oversight.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Norway\u2019s government pension fund divested from Cognyte, citing the \u201cunacceptable risk that the company contributes to serious human rights violations\u201d.<\/p>\n

Cognyte sells a range of surveillance and investigative tools. Some are one-off purchases while others are sold under a subscription service.<\/p>\n

Its known offerings include phone- and data-tapping tools, software for managing and analysing data during investigations and, until recently, offensive cybersecurity tools.<\/p>\n

It also sells a secretive technology called First Mile that allows security services to track the location of people\u2019s mobile phones using only their phone number.<\/p>\n

Details of the programme only came to light during the investigation into the Brazilian intelligence service use of Cognyte products.<\/p>\n

The technology can also be used to \u201ccollect data in text messages and record voices from mobile phones\u201d, said Eitay Mack, an Israeli human rights lawyer who has lodged cases in the Israeli courts regarding the sale of Cognyte products to Myanmar and Brazil.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018For 5,000 shekels, is it worth ruining your family?\u2019 Israel urges citizens to resist spying for IranOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

When a country buys such powerful surveillance technology, it becomes \u201cvery tempting to abuse it\u201d, he warned. \u201cIt is important for people in Ireland to ask themselves if there are robust checks and balances on the security services who have these systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company is known to have a close relationship with the Israeli security services. Earlier this year, it announced the appointment of Nadav Argaman, the former head of the Israel security service Shin Bet, as a senior adviser. However, it is not known if Cognyte tools are used in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Cognyte did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

A Department of Justice spokesman said it is not able to comment on matters under the control of the Garda Commissioner. He said it also does not comment on Garda technology for \u201csecurity and operational reasons\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na\u2019s intelligence section paid substantial sums of money to an Israeli spyware company with a history…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,13169,18,8030,19,17,71,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-42476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-department-of-justice","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-garda-siochana","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-palestine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}