Critics pan spyware maker NSO’s transparency claims amid its push to enter US market

NSO Group, a prominent and controversial developer of government surveillance technology, unveiled a new transparency report on Wednesday, signaling what it calls a 'new phase of accountability.' However, this report diverges from its predecessors by omitting critical information regarding the number of clients the company has turned away, investigated, or terminated due to human rights violations associated with its products. While the document includes commitments to uphold human rights and ensure that clients adhere to similar standards, it fails to provide tangible evidence to support these assurances. Experts and critics monitoring NSO and the broader spyware industry suggest that this report is part of the company's strategic push to persuade the U.S. government to lift its designation on the Entity List, which would facilitate NSO's entry into the U.S. market under new financial and leadership arrangements. Following a buyout by a group of U.S. investors last year, NSO has been undergoing a significant overhaul, including notable leadership changes. Former Trump administration official David Friedman has taken the role of executive chairman, while CEO Yaron Shohat has resigned and Omri Lavie, the last active founder, has also departed, as reported by Haaretz. In the report, Friedman stated, 'When NSO’s products are in the right hands within the right countries, the world is a far safer place. That will always be our overriding mission.' Notably, the report does not specify the countries in which NSO operates. Natalia Krapiva, senior tech-legal counsel at Access Now, a digital rights organization focused on spyware abuses, commented to TechCrunch, 'NSO is clearly on a campaign to get removed from the U.S. Entity List and one of the key things they need to show is that they have dramatically changed as a company since they were listed.' She emphasized that changing leadership and releasing this transparency report are steps in that direction, but cautioned that NSO has a history of making similar claims without substantial change. Krapiva added, 'This is nothing but another attempt at window dressing and the U.S. government should not be taken for a fool.' Since NSO was added to the Entity List by the Biden administration, the company has actively lobbied for the removal of its restrictions, particularly intensifying efforts following Donald Trump's return to office last year. Despite these efforts, NSO had not succeeded in persuading the current administration as of May. In late December, the Trump administration lifted sanctions against certain executives associated with another spyware consortium, which some perceived as a potential shift in policy towards spyware developers. The latest transparency report covers activities from 2025 and is notably less detailed than previous reports. For instance, last year's report indicated that NSO had initiated three investigations into possible misuse of its tools, leading to the severance of ties with one client and imposing corrective measures on another. In contrast, this year's report lacks such specifics and does not disclose how many clients NSO serves, a detail typically included in past disclosures. John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, expressed disappointment at the lack of verifiable information in the report. 'I was expecting information, numbers,' Scott-Railton shared with TechCrunch. 'Nothing in this document allows outsiders to verify NSO’s claims, which is business as usual from a company that has a decade-long history of making claims that later turned out to be misrepresentations.'