A few days after the initial revelations of the Pegasus Project, in July 2021, then German chancellor Angela Merkel called for more restrictions on the spyware trade.
In September 2021, four German media outlets revealed that the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) had bought Pegasus spyware. The authority later admitted to this. In October 2021, German media also reported that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency (BND) had been using the spyware and that the German Chancellery had approved of its deployment. Following the revelations, German human rights activists filed a data protection complaint against the use of Pegasus by the German federal criminal police.