Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano reports that Italy's General Directorate for International Trade Policy removed the permission εξαγωγής προϊόντων από την Hacking Team, απαγορεύοντάς της ουσιαστικά την πώληση λογισμικού επιτήρησης σε χώρες except of the EU area.
Hacking Team had a hard time last year when the company's server was breached by hackers and all their data was leaked to Internet, όπως ευαίσθητες πληροφορίες, email, εσωτερικό λογισμικό, αρχεία καταγραφής, exploits, και τον πηγαίο κώδικα του εργαλείου εποπτείας που ονομάζεται RCS ή σύστημα τηλεχειρισμού.
Still, the company continued to sell its products after a quick update on the Galileo RCS platform.
Although everyone was already aware of what the Hacking Team is doing, the authorities never intervened to investigate the company's activities even when irrefutable evidence was revealed that the company was selling surveillance software in countries known for human rights abuses.
Legally, the company was covered, as it had obtained a special export license for the RCS platform on 3 April 2015. Their license allowed them to sell surveillance software to 46 countries without requiring any kind of approval from the Italian authorities. Normally, approval would be necessary due to the sensitive nature of the software's capabilities.
Things changed suddenly last week when authorities suddenly decided to revoke the license without giving any explanation.
The license would be valid until April 30 2018. So now if Hacking Team wants to sell software, it should get approval for every sale by the Italian authorities.
The 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 Israel, India, Iraq, 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 States of America, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Although the reason for it has not been announced recall of the permit, the Italian press suspects that it could be due to the recent arrest, torture, and murder of an Italian journalist in Egypt.
It seems that the Egyptian authorities may have used the Hacking Team's RCS platform to spy on Italian Giulio Regeni, who conducted a survey of the role of unions in the post-Mubarak era.
His family members claim that Regeni was killed by the Egyptian security forces.
