Welcome to the Inquiry. I'm Charmaine Cozier. Each week, one question, four experts, and

an answer. Something is troubling the president of France. Emmanuel Macron is so concerned

he summons the Prime Minister and other senior staff to his official residence for a special

security meeting. The gathering in late July discussed plans for a series of urgent inquiries

into the matter. Just a few days before, an international team of investigative journalists

reported that President Macron's mobile number and those of other French government members

were on a leaked list, believed to contain potential candidates for possible remote surveillance.

The story also details ultra-sophisticated spyware. It can infiltrate a smartphone to watch,

listen, read and record, and you won't notice a thing. The investigation that startled President

Macron gave a glimpse into the surveillance tech industry where assignments and client details

are top secret and global demand for services is high. So this week we're asking,

are our phones spying on us?

Part one, Pegasus. I think that anyone who cares about privacy and also anyone who cares about

democracy and who cares about the safety of journalists should be concerned about this.

Stephanie Kirch-Gessner is the US Investigation Correspondent for the Guardian newspaper.

She's also in the global group of around 80 journalists from 17 media outlets which

spent months on a recent major investigation. Pegasus is a software or malware, as we call it,

that's made by an Israeli company called NSO Group.

The private company started 11 years ago. Its website says it only sells to law enforcement

and intelligence agencies of vetted governments for the sole purpose of saving lives through

preventing crime and terror acts.

What that means is it's intended to try to intercept conversations and messages between kind of

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