ISRAEL’S COGNYTE SUPPLYING SURVEILLANCE GEAR TO INDIA

An Israeli entity with multiple subsidiaries in Germany, Israel and Cyprus, among other countries, and which is operating its research and development centres in Israel, Brazil, Bulgaria and Cyprus, has emerged as among the largest suppliers of intercept and surveillance “gear” to Indian agencies. The intercept “gear” is designed to be used to allow authorities the power to listen in on calls, view text messages and web traffic, including emails, and track the locations of users without the assistance of telecom and internet firms.

The Israel-based Cognyte Software Limited, which operates from Herzliya Pituah, an affluent neighbourhood in Tel Aviv, produces and sells software and platforms that broadly cover three fields: “Investigative Analytics” in which it claims that its software fuses massive amounts of data from many different sources; analyses data through predictive and behavioral analytics; and rapidly transforms data into critical insights and prepares a workflow to uncover vital leads and drives collaboration across investigative teams to accelerate investigations and reach faster conclusions and resolutions.

The second set of tools, which the company has classified as “Operational Intelligence Analytics”, is used by security agencies to carry out operational security missions, providing them real-time or “near real-time” insights for successful completion of missions through mobile devices.

As per the company, the last set of tools that it produces is related to “Threat Intelligence Analytics”, which is mostly used to handle cyber threats. It is the second set of tools that uses mobile phones to gather information, which the company has apparently sold in India.

People familiar with developments in the field said that Cognyte was operating in more than 100 countries and has 400 plus government agencies as its client, which means that multiple agencies in a single country