A surveillance scandal in Greece, involving the state intelligence service and sophisticated spyware, has targeted government ministers, military officials, and journalists. The situation has prompted high-level resignations and criticism of the government’s response to the widening controversy.
The matter came to public attention during the summer of 2022 when Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the socialist PASOK party and then a Member of the European Parliament, received an alert from the European Parliament’s specialized IT services. The experts informed him that his mobile phone had been targeted by a malicious text message from an unknown sender. This message contained a potent form of spyware known as Predator. The software is capable of deeply compromising a device, allowing its operators to access private messages and remotely activate the phone’s camera and microphone, thereby turning the device into a comprehensive surveillance tool. Predator is marketed by Intellexa, a company with Israeli connections that operates from a base in Athens.
The situation escalated for Androulakis when he made a second discovery. In addition to the Predator targeting attempt, he learned that he had been under official surveillance by Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP). The justification provided for this state-sanctioned monitoring was “national security reasons.” This direct involvement of the EYP drew the crisis closer to the executive branch of the government. Just a month after assuming office in the summer of 2019, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had made the strategic decision to place the EYP under his direct personal supervision, altering its traditional chain of command.
The developing crisis placed the conservative government at the center of a political firestorm, leading to significant political fallout. The pressure resulted in the resignation of Panagiotis Kontoleon, the head of the EYP. Concurrently, Grigoris Dimitriadis, a top aide and nephew to the prime minister, also resigned from his post. Dimitriadis held a critical position within the prime minister’s office, serving as the official liaison between the executive and the national intelligence service, a role that put him at the nexus of the government’s oversight of the EYP.
Information released by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority revealed the extensive scale of the surveillance efforts. According to the authority, the Predator spyware was used in attempts to compromise the devices of at least 87 individuals. A critical detail in the findings was that 27 of these individuals were also simultaneously under surveillance by the EYP. The list of targets for this dual monitoring included high-ranking figures such as serving government ministers and senior officers within the Greek military. This overlap in targets suggested to critics a potential coordination between the state intelligence agency and the operators of the illegal spyware.
In response to these revelations, the government maintained a firm position. Officials insisted that the overlap between targets of the EYP and Predator was purely a coincidence. The government also categorically denied that any state law-enforcement agency had ever procured or utilized the Predator software. At the time of the surveillance activities, the use of such spyware was illegal in Greece. Following the exposure of the scandal, a new law was passed in 2022 which has since legalized the use of surveillance software by state security services, albeit under what are described as strict conditions.
Despite these legislative changes and official statements, the government has not provided an explanation for why the secret services conducted surveillance on specific, high-profile individuals. Among the unexplained cases are the monitoring of Lieutenant General Konstantinos Floros, the Chief of the National Defence General Staff, and Kostis Hatzidakis, who was a cabinet member at the time and currently serves as the vice-president of the government. This lack of transparency has fueled continued questioning of the government’s motives and actions.
In the aftermath of the scandal, the Greek government introduced a new law concerning the confidentiality of communications. While the legislation implemented additional safeguards intended for use by law-enforcement authorities, it also faced significant criticism. Opponents of the new law argue that it effectively eliminates the right of citizens to be informed if they had been subjected to state surveillance in the past, thereby reducing accountability. The government also faced censure for a perceived lack of determination in identifying the individuals or entities responsible for spying on its own ministers and military personnel. This criticism intensified after authorities conducted a raid on the Athens offices of Intellexa. The raid occurred months after the wiretapping scandal had already become public knowledge, and the investigators ultimately left the premises empty-handed.
Christos Rammos, a former senior judge who was the president of the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) when the scandal emerged, was a central figure in the effort to uncover the facts of the wiretapping. He described facing significant resistance in his work. “In Greece the political system cannot tolerate independent authorities, the so-called checks and balances on power. The wiretapping affair was a traumatic experience for our democracy,” Rammos told the BBC. “I was subjected to personal attacks. It was an open war.”
Because one of the first known targets, Nikos Androulakis, was a Member of the European Parliament, the scandal quickly garnered international attention and scrutiny. The European Parliament responded by establishing a special Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware, known as the PEGA committee. The committee’s rapporteur, former MEP Sophie in ’t Veld, conveyed to the BBC that the Greek government had been uncooperative with the inquiry. “The Greek government had made every possible attempt to conceal the truth. They have, at every turn, refused cooperation,” she stated.
In her comments, in ’t Veld elaborated on the broader implications of such surveillance tools. “The whole spyware thing is not something that you can see in isolation. It’s not taking place in a vacuum. It’s used to silence critical voices. It’s used to stifle scrutiny. But, the damage has been done; it’s had a chilling effect.”
She provided a direct example of this effect, recounting a recent conversation.
“I was just now coming back from a coffee with a friend of mine who was also looking into spyware and she said, ‘I cannot be sure that my phone is safe from the Greek government’ – quite literally.”
