The deployment of Invasive technology against journalists and other media actors.
In 2021, the Fidesz government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban continued its steady erosion of media pluralism. As part of global revelations, an investigative reporting project meanwhile unearthed the surveillance of multiple Hungarian journalists using the Pegasus spyware developed by Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, leading to fresh concerns about the illegal surveillance of journalists and their sources . Hungary was the only country in the EU in which the state intelligence agencies were suspected of tar‐ geting their own nation’s journalists. The 12 alerts recorded on the MapMF plat‐ form, and 47 attacked persons or entities related to media , do not reflect the true scale of the challenges facing media freedom in Hungary, which continued to be among the lowest of the EU member states. Unlike other EU states, however, the state/government was the source of 50% of documeted alerts, indicating the continued pressure by the Fidesz party on independent media. On 18 July...