Spyware was used in accordance with the law says senior security official

A senior Polish security official has responded to fresh allegations that a further two people were victims of hacking with Pegasus spyware, saying that all surveillance operations were carried out in accordance with the law.

The AP news agency and Citizen Lab, a department of Toronto University, revealed on Tuesday the names of two more Poles whose phones had been hacked with Pegasus spyware.

The names of Michal Kolodziejczak, a farmer and agrarian social movement leader, and Tomasz Szwejgiert, the co-author of a book about the head of Poland's secret services, join a growing list of victims that is becoming a serious issue for the government.

Pegasus can harvest information from smart phones and eavesdrop on conversations, and is only sold to governments and government agencies.

Responding to the new allegations, Stanislaw Zaryn, the director of Poland National Security Department, wrote on Twitter: "Surveillance was only carried out in justified cases and in accordance with the law."

He added that, due to legal limitations, he could not provide any details about whether specific people had been spied on.

Zaryn also said that allegations that operational work had been used for political purposes were "untrue".

An extraordinary commission (without investigative powers), whose aim is to investigate the cases of illegal surveillance using the Pegasus software, has been in session since mid-January in the upper house of the Polish parliament.