With Pegasus spyware intruding into the life and activities of citizens in India, a major storm unfolded.

The latest report of The New York Times (NYT) titled 'The Battle for the World's Most Powerful Cyberweapon' projects the 'State' as an agent of tracking its own citizens.

The debate on citizen's privacy is not new, as the ball was set rolling in the US with Edward Snowden, an American former computer intelligence consultant, leaking US National Security Agency's (NSA) global surveillance programmes in 2013 run in cooperation with telecommunication companies.

Yet, what is intriguing is, who actually controls the data and what is the real intent? Data control is the new path towards global supremacy and dominance where the major powers, especially the USA and China, are racing with the times. The 5G network competition is part of this larger game.

However, the concern for we humans is not and should not just be about the technological data, but the purpose, extend and use of that data. Many citizens are still naive and do not know the real implications of data control, not just in tracking humans, but also in altering and manipulating humans. Hence, a new world beyond cyberwar is being developed to design and control humans.

The issue then is, who are these agencies and who are their subjects? What kind of impact will it have on our social connections and human behaviour? What will be this new world of 'hacked humans' and their social behaviour? Significantly, what power hegemony or asymmetry will it create in the new world order? Pegasus was developed by Israeli NSO Group Technologies (Short form of Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company founders), for state governments to assist in surveillance activities, as the software broke barriers with 'zero click'.

'Zero click' can infect and start tracking cellphones without any human interaction like a click or any authorisation.

Pegasus was, thus, for a specific ethical purpose to track criminals, terrorists and individuals who were a threat to humans.

Interestingly though, the software was designed so that American citizens' phones could not be tracked. There lies the caveat of who would have supremacy of control and manage the data, and what will be the intent in this disruptive transforming world of global powers.

However, NYT reports a special software 'Phantom' was also developed by NSO for use by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the USA over its citizens, though it was not for sale to other state governments.

This creates the greater complexity of the spyware - Pegasus.

In many states, there are rules and regulations on protection of personal data, like the GDPR (The General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe, Personal Data Protection Act in Singapore, Indian Data Protection Bill in India and Privacy Act in Nepal. Despite this, there is an increasing debate on the use of Pegasus or similar spyware that challenges individual privacy, especially in democratic states.

Software can track and monitor human beings.

With our world of Google maps, digital payment systems, social networking sites like Facebook or Instagram and the like, humans are already a subject of open privacy. Some with due intention and others unintentionally share data that companies use to sell their products and keep a track of individual preferences and activities.

However, according to a renowned historian, Professor Yuval Noah Horari, the greater threat to humans is the future of AI (Artificial Intelligence) combined with biotechnology.

This is when the new technologies enter deep into the human skin.

With face and voice biometric recognition, DNA samples, genetic codes, brain mapping and human clones, the software will not only track humans through digital devices, but will alter and change their DNA or genetic design.

This means that those who have the knowledge and data will redesign and control the entire human race.

A major concern evolving for humans is the race among the Unite States, China and other major powers in creating large databases of human DNA and using it with AI to create human subjects.

Prof. Harari believes these human subjects will have predesigned and altered behaviour, and their choices can be manipulated.

Dr. Moran Cerf, a neuroscientist, states that research on the human brain has already advanced to interpret and plant dreams and store memories.

Dr. Cerf says that with advanced technologies they are able to know the decisions and actions of humans prior to their actual implementation and, hence, possible to manipulate.

For healthcare and the safety of mankind, such research is a positive boom, but if used by powers negatively, it can pose an existential threat. Prof. Horari believes that this will create the greatest disparity in humans, worse than poverty and inequality of wealth.

Therefore, the debate lies in how these technologies will be used as a weapon to target certain group/s or communities by the powers that control the technology and databases.

The world powers are competing for control over large databases. Cyber warfare is alarming as hacking computers and the mobile network poses a threat to development and state sovereignty, but the research in bioweapons and biotechnology, if unchecked with adequate ethical laws and controls, will empower state agencies in an unimaginable manner.

In the worst scenario, if anti-human groups gain access, the disaster will be many folds bigger than nuclear destruction, as it might lead to the extinction of the human species.

Kochhar is Assistant Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India; Tiwari is a cyber security expert from Nepal

A version of this article appears in the print on February 7, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.