July 3 (Reuters) - A Canadian technology watchdog group said on Friday that a former member of the European Parliament who worked on a committee investigating illegal surveillance had his own phone hacked using an Israeli-made spyware tool.

Citizen Lab research said in a report that the phone of Stelios Kologlou, a Greek television journalist turned member of parliament, was hacked at least three times between October 2022 and March 2023 using Pegasus spyware, a tool distributed by the Israeli company NSO Group.

At the time he was targeted, Kologlou was a member of the European Parliament's PEGA Committee, which was formed in 2022 to investigate illegal phone hacking across the European Union. The committee focused primarily on the use of Pegasus spyware and similar tools, and concluded that governments across the bloc had likely used spyware, "in one way or another, some legitimate and some illegitimate."

Kologlou said he was surprised by how brazen those behind the hacking were.

He told Reuters, "I didn't expect a member of the PEGA Committee to be spied on by Pegasus... I didn't expect them to be this reckless."

NSO did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In a statement to Reuters, the European Parliament did not directly address the Kologlou case, but said its IT security services "constantly monitor cybersecurity threats as well as potential cyberattacks on the work environment".

He noted that spyware detection tools have been available to all MPs since 2022, and that a report adopted last month called for expanding their scope to include all devices used in parliamentary work.

The European Commission has not yet responded to letters requesting comment.

NSO has previously said its surveillance tools are used to detect serious crimes and protect national security, but the company has faced repeated accusations of facilitating unwarranted surveillance of journalists, political dissidents, civil rights activists, and religious figures around the world.

The US government blacklisted NSO Group in 2021 due to concerns about human rights and national security.

Last year, Meta Platforms, the owner of WhatsApp, was awarded $168 million in damages from NSO Group for illegally hacking its platform, although the amount was significantly reduced. Last month, Meta accused NSO Group of violating a court order prohibiting attacks on its services.

Citizen Lab said it believes Kologlou's phone was hacked through a then-unknown Apple software vulnerability. It added that Kologlou received repeated warnings from Apple in 2023 and 2024 about government-backed hacking attempts.

Citizen Lab did not specify who used the Pegasus software to target the former congressman.

Apple did not directly respond to questions related to Kologlou, but said that the security vulnerability mentioned in the Citizen Lab report had already been fixed, and that it regularly issues alerts to those targeted by hacking.