US Government Purchased NSO Group's Landmark Geolocation Tracking Tool

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On the heels of placing notorious spyware company NSO Group on a Commerce Department blacklist, the Biden administration entered into a secret contract with NSO to purchase a geolocation tool called Landmark that can covertly track mobile phones around the world without the phone user’s knowledge or consent.

The administration purchased the surveillance software via the US affiliate of NSO called Gideon that used companies called “Cleopatra Holdings” or Riva Networks, through which the FBI had purchased NSO’s Pegasus software allegedly for testing purposes two years earlier. Neither Cleopatra nor Riva appears to have formal US offices.

Under the contract with Gideon, U.S. government officials had access to a special NSO portal that allowed them to type in mobile phone numbers, which enabled the geolocation tool to pinpoint the specific location of the phone at that moment without the phone user’s knowledge or consent. According to sources, there have been thousands…