Critics are criticizing transparency claims made by spyware maker NSO as it seeks to enter the US market

NSO Group, one of the most famous and controversial manufacturers of government spyware, released a new transparency report on Wednesday, as the company enters what it described as a “new phase of accountability.”

But the report, unlike NSO’s previous annual disclosures, lacks details about how many customers the company has rejected, investigated, suspended or terminated for human rights violations involving its surveillance tools. While the report contains promises to respect human rights and set controls to require its clients to do the same, the report provides no concrete evidence to support either.

Experts and critics who have followed NSO and the spyware market for years believe the report is part of an effort and campaign by the company to get the US government to remove the company from the ban list – technically called the Entity List – as it hopes to enter the US market with financial backers and new executives at the helm.

Last year, a group of American investors acquired the company, and since then, NSO has been going through a transition that has included high-profile personnel changes: former Trump official David Friedman was named the new CEO; CEO Yaron Shohat stepped down. Omri Lavi, the last remaining founder still involved in the company, has also left, as Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

“When NSO products are in the right hands within the right countries, the world becomes a much safer place. This will always be our core mission,” Friedman wrote in the report, which did not mention which country NSO operates in.

“NSO is clearly on a campaign to be removed from the US Entity List and one of the main things it needs to show is that it has changed significantly as a company since it was listed,” Natalia Krapeva, senior technology legal counsel at Access Now, a digital rights organization that investigates spyware abuses, told TechCrunch.

“The leadership change is one part and this transparency report is another part,” Krapeva said.

“However, we have seen this before with NSO and other spyware companies over the years where they change names and leadership and publish empty reports on transparency or ethics but the violations continue.”

“This is just another attempt at embellishment, and the US government should not be taken for a fool,” Krapeva said.

Since the Biden administration added NSO to the Entity List, the company has lobbied to have its restrictions lifted. After President Donald Trump took office again last year, NSO stepped up these efforts. But as of May last year, NSO had failed to influence the new administration.

In late December, the Trump administration lifted sanctions on three executives linked to the Intellexa spyware consortium, in what some saw as a sign of a shift in the administration’s stance toward spyware makers.

Lack of details

This year’s transparency report, which covers the year 2025, contains fewer details than previous years’ reports.

In a previous transparency report covering 2024, for example, NSO said it had opened three investigations into potential abuse. Without naming the customers, the company said it had severed ties with one customer, and imposed “alternative remedial measures” on another customer, including mandating human rights training, monitoring customer activities, and requesting more information about how the customer used the system. NSO did not provide any information about the third investigation.

NSO also said that during 2024, the company declined more than $20 million “in new business opportunities due to human rights concerns.”

In a transparency report published the previous year, covering 2022 and 2023, NSO said it had suspended or terminated the business of six government clients, without naming them, and claimed those actions resulted in a loss of revenue of $57 million.

In 2021, NSO said it had “disconnected” the systems of five customers since 2016 after investigating misuse, resulting in an estimated loss of more than $100 million in revenue. It also said it had “discontinued its engagements” with five customers due to “human rights concerns.”

NSO’s most recent transparency report does not include the total number of NSO customers, and the statistics have been consistently present in previous reports.

TechCrunch asked NSO spokesperson Jill Lanier to provide similar statistics and numbers, but had not received answers at press time.

John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, a human rights organization that has investigated spyware abuses for more than a decade, criticized NSO.

“I was expecting information and numbers,” Scott Railton told TechCrunch. “Nothing in this document allows outsiders to verify NSO’s claims, which is business as usual from a company with a long history of making claims that were later found to be misrepresentations.”