Paragon, contract with Italy terminated over cancelled case

After the temporary stop, the contract between Paragon Solutions and the Italian government was finally terminated. Reason: the improper use made of the spyware Graphite intercepting Fanpage editor Francesco Cancellato. The news of the contract termination comes from the Copasir in its report on the use of Graphite spyware by intelligence. Italian intelligence did not 'consider Paragon's proposal to carry out a check on the system logs of the Graphite platforms in use by Aise and Aisi to be acceptable, as it was invasive, unverifiable in its scope, results and method, and therefore not in line with national security requirements. If such verifications had been carried out by a private and foreign party, they would have severely compromised the reputation of the Italian Agencies in the international intelligence community and exposed data that are confidential by nature'. Thus intelligence sources, after Paragon let it be known that it had proposed to the Italian authorities, who replied negatively, "a way to determine" whether Graphite "had been used against the journalist" Francesco Cancellato.

On 14 February, the intelligence agencies and Paragon Solutions "mutually agreed to suspend the use of Graphite spyware. The news was widely reported in the media, and was never corrected or denied by either party. Between the intelligence agencies and Paragon on 12 April 2025, the decision was then reached to sign the 'document terminating the business relationship between the parties, without any further demands or obligations'. Thus, there was never any unilateral termination as a result of alleged illegal conduct by the Italian intelligence agencies'. This was clarified by intelligence sources. 'Following the uproar caused by the affair,' it reads, on 14 February last, Aise and Aisi had decided to temporarily suspend the use of Graphite pending the Committee's investigations. "But during the Committee's inspections of the agencies," the report states, "it was made clear that, following the suspension, the decision was taken to terminate the contract with Paragon anyway.

Further information comes from the Israeli company itself: Paragon 'offered both the Italian government and parliament a way to determine whether its system had been used against the journalist in violation of Italian law and contractual terms. Since the Italian authorities chose not to proceed with this solution, Paragon has terminated its contracts in Italy,' says the company that produces the Graphite spyware that Meta claims was used to intercept Cancellato.