Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano reports that Italy's Directorate General for International Trade Policy has removed Hacking Team's export license, effectively banning it from selling surveillance software to countries outside the EU.
Hacking Team went through tough times last year when the company's server was breached by hackers and all their data was leaked online, including sensitive information, emails, internal software, logs, exploits, and the source code of the surveillance tool called RCS, or Remote Control System.
However, the company continued to sell its products after making a quick update to the Galileo RCS platform.
Despite the fact that everyone now knew what Hacking Team was doing, the authorities never stepped in to investigate the company's activities, even when irrefutable evidence was uncovered that proved the company was selling surveillance software to countries known for human rights abuses.
Legally, the company was covered, as it had obtained a special export license for the RCS platform on April 3, 2015. The license allowed them to sell surveillance software in 46 countries without requiring any kind of approval from Italian authorities. Normally, approval would be necessary due to the sensitive nature of the software’s capabilities.
Things suddenly changed last week, when authorities suddenly decided to revoke the permit, without providing any explanation.
The license would be valid until April 30, 2018. So now if Hacking Team wants to sell software, it will have to get approval for each sale from the Italian authorities.
Hacking Team will now need a license to sell products in the following countries: Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Israel, India, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Mongolia, Mexico, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United States of America, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Although the reason for the revocation of the license has not been announced, the Italian press suspects that it could be due to the recent arrest, torture, and murder of an Italian journalist in Egypt.
It appears that Egyptian authorities may have used Hacking Team's RCS platform to spy on Italian Giulio Regeni, who was conducting research on the role of unions in the post-Mubarak era.
His family members claim that Regeni was killed by Egyptian security forces.
