Singgih Wiryono, Ihsanuddin, Jakarta – Amnesty International Indonesia has revealed the discovery that the Indonesian police have purchased spyware from Israel through a third party, namely Singapore.
The findings in early June 2024 were re-echoed by Amnesty International following controversy over ongoing revisions to the National Police Law (UU Polri), in particular those related to articles that will give wiretapping powers to the police.
"The expansion of the police's authority through the RUU Polri is also increasingly worrying with these findings on invasive spyware in Indonesia", said Amnesty International Media and Campaign Manager Nurina Savitri during a public discussion titled The Police as a Super Body, Who will Oversee Them, in the Cikini area of Central Jakarta on Monday July 22.
Savitri said the purchase of invasive spyware and other cyber monitoring technology has been carried by companies and state institutions such as the National Police and the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN).
These transactions occurred in 2017-2023 and were conducted in various countries such as Greece, Singapore, Malaysia and Israel.
Savitri said that some of the importation of spyware tools were carried out through intermediaries in Singapore, which do keep historical records of suppliers of spyware to state institutions in Indonesia.
There were three spyware tools found by Amnesty International Indonesia. The first is FinFisher, which is allegedly used by the BSSN.
"Amnesty International detected FinSpy server, spyware owned by FinFisher, which is active in Indonesia and was found on servers related to BSSN", said Savitri.
Second is Wintego System Ltd which is a cyber monitoring company from Israel whose dangerous domains were discovered to be used in Indonesia.
In addition, Amnesty also said there is a broker named Ataka who is a Wintego reseller in Singapore and acts as a partner with the National Police supplying a product called "The Helios Android and Tactical Web Intelligence".
The third is the Intellexa Consortium, a group of European countries that produce invasive spyware.
"Amnesty International identified the existence of the one-click predator which is distributed on the ebsite Suaraoposisi.net, several websites that imitate Papuan news portals and Geloraku.id", she said.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Temuan Amnesty International: Polri Beli Alat Sadap Israel Lewat Singapura".]
