Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, after exposing the sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, has focused on a new topic that concerns us all. In the HBO documentary Surveilled — directed by Matthew O’Neill and Perri Peltz — we are taken on a journey, from New York City all the way to Tel Aviv, to look into the growing business of commercial spyware.

Ronan Farrow’s work on the topic began with an article for The New Yorker, and has expanded into a film, where he uncovers through an audiovisual reportage many of the topics mentioned in writing. The storytelling revolves around Pegasus: “a spyware developed by the Israeli cyber-arms company NSO Group that is designed to be covertly and remotely installed on mobile phones running iOS and Android.” The idyllic name that evokes the winged horse of Greek mythology, that was honoured with a constellation, symbolises a guide for humankind, where the spirit can soar boundlessly. In this case, what is boundless is the ability of the spyware to access messages, calls, passwords, location — harvesting all kind of information through Apps. We basically understand we are constantly under surveillance.

If on one end it seems like our lives are in the hands of a thriving hub of technology, on the other end there’s a cyber watch monitoring the moves of NSO: Citizen Lab. Founded by Ronald Deibert in Toronto, the organisation controls Internet filtering and how it poses threats to human rights. In fact, this is what the entire cyber-control debate revolves around: safety vs. breaching people’s privacy.

Surveilled addresses the contradictory uses and implications of phone hacking. Those in support, highlight the ability to monitor criminal activity. Those against it, underline the threats to civil liberties. Between zoom calls with his editor, Ronan Farrow embarks on a series of interviews with multiple actors involved in this dynamic. Engineer Claudiu Dan Gheorghe explains what it was like to be working at WhatsApp and how it exploited its software to gain information from 1400 users.

We get acquainted with the notorious figure of Shalev Hulio, NSO Group’s C.E.O., that Farrow first interviewed in 2019. Since then, the American journalist has been in constant contact with the staff of NSO, which according to him “is in a state of contradiction and crisis.” The reason is that its programmers speak with pride about the use of this intrusive software in criminal investigations and yet also mention the excitement in being able to compromise technology platforms.

The biggest controversial aspect of it all is that this spyware has been sold to governments in Western Europe and the Middle East. Therefore it’s been transformed into a profit machine and this means our daily lives are being surveilled by the state. Also Israeli reporter Chaim Levinson exposed this in an article and discussed the matter on camera with Ronan Farrow. Meanwhile, the interviewees who support the use of the spyware, shield themselves behind specious excuses of fighting terrorism and unlawful acts.

Besides Israel and the USA, Farrow travels also to Spain, specifically Barcelona, because the pro-independence region of Catalonia has become a target of spyware. Jordi Solé, a Member of the European Parliament, met a digital-security researcher, Elies Campo, in one of the Catalan parliament’s ornate chambers. Through them we get further insight on the way this software is targeted for political reasons.

The entire documentary follows Ronan Farrow one interview after the next and allows viewers to draw their conclusions. He displays his skills in hunting down an insidious multi-billion-dollar industry. Surveilled undoubtably is a brilliant testimony of investigative journalism, but from a cinematic perspective it does not have a compelling form of storytelling within the espionage genre. However, Ronan Farrow effectively shows how spyware is an infection, not just from a technical perspective — in the way it attacks our devices — but also from a more philosophical angle.

Final Grade: C+

Photos Courtesy of HBO

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