Minister Carlos Basombrio
Three years after Peru acquired the Verint package, it’s not yet up and running, Carlos Basombrio, the incoming interior minister said just before taking office last week. “When it becomes operative, it will be used against organized crime [in coordination] with judges and prosecutors.”
Located in a three-story building next to the country’s DINI spy agency, Pisco sits on a Lima military base off-limits to the public. It can track 5,000 individual targets and simultaneously record the communications of 300 people, according to agency documents, with eight listening rooms and parabolic antennae affixed outside to capture satellite downlinks.
Control of Pisco was shifted to the national police after the spying scandal that crippled the intelligence agency. Verint sent Israeli personnel to train Peruvian operators, adding eight months of instruction at the host government’s request, records show.
One major eavesdropping tool has, however, been active in Peru since October. It can physically track any phone in real time using geolocation. Under a July 2015 decree, police can locate phones without a court order, but would need one to listen in.
Government officials wouldn’t offer details on what software was being used to track cellphones. But two months before the decree, DINI officials said payment had been authorized for a Verint geolocation product called SkyLock. That software enables phone-tracking within the country, and a premium version can pinpoint any mobile phone in most countries.
All four Peruvian phone companies agreed to cooperate on geolocation, signing a pact with the government the details of which were not disclosed.
Civil libertarians consider warrantless geolocation a dangerous invasion of privacy, especially in a nation with pervasive public corruption. Peru’s incoming congress is dominated by Fuerza Popular, a party associated with imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori. He ran one of the most corrupt Latin American regimes in recent history.
In July 2015, the Verint surveillance platform got caught in the chaos of Peruvian politics.
Word of the purchase was leaked, triggering a government audit. The Miami-based Verint vice president who made the sale, Shefi Paz, complained about the phone companies’ apparent foot-dragging in emails and letters to DINI officials. They weren’t making themselves available for meetings.
“Verint should not have to suffer from political delays,” Paz wrote . Reached by phone, Paz declined to comment.
The eavesdropping products Verint and its peers sell play an important role in fighting terrorism, said Ika Balzam, a former employee of both Verint and Nice. That is a common industry claim, echoed by politicians.
And yet, Balzam acknowledged, there are no guarantees that nation-states won’t abuse surveillance tools.
“There is a saying,” Balzam said: “’Who will guard the guards?’”
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