THE WATCH STAFF
The United States is partnering with Australia, Denmark and Norway to establish guidelines for how governments can safeguard democracy by controlling the export of surveillance technology.
In a joint statement released by the White House on December 10, 2021, the four nations said the Export Controls and Human Rights Initiative (ECHRI) will be developed over a “year of action” in 2022 to help counter the misuse of commercial technology by authoritarian governments.
The White House announcement preceded a warning issued by the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center on January 7, 2022, that informed the public about the risks of surveillance technology. For instance, software that infects phones with malware has been used to spy on journalists, activists and politicians. One prominent example: Pegasus, which was created by the Israeli company NSO Group.
Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom supported, but were not part of, the joint statement, according to the White House.
“Those who are supportive are no less committed to partnership and dialogue over the year of action,” a National Security Council spokesperson told Nextgov, the government and technology website, December 10, 2021.
The ECHRI will also gather policymakers, technical experts, and export-control and human rights practitioners to “ensure that critical and emerging technologies work for, and not against, democratic societies,” according to the White House release.
The initiative comes in the wake of a U.S. Commerce Department rule issued in October 2021 that brought the U.S. in line with 42 other nations as part of the Wassenaar Arrangement, which sets voluntary export controls on military and dual-use technologies, according to the TechCrunch website. In November, the Commerce Department added the NSO Group and three other companies to its Entity List, which subjects them to trade restrictions that include U.S. technology.
Such actions “come after years of the U.S. trying to determine the right controls over technologies that can be used for legitimate cybersecurity purposes or as weapons by adversaries and intelligence-gathering operations,” according to a November 3, 2021, Nextgov story.
Pegasus, for example, can collect emails, call records, user passwords, contact lists, pictures, videos, sound recordings and browsing histories, according to security researchers and NSO marketing materials, The Washington Post newspaper reported July 19, 2021. The spyware can also activate cameras or microphones to acquire images and recordings, according to the Post.
In 2021, Apple discovered spyware that gave broad access to devices used by U.S. diplomats in Uganda, The New York Times newspaper reported January 7, 2022. The discovery was made public not long after the U.S. acted against companies that develop such software, including the NSO Group, according to the Times. NSO insists that it turns away customers who would abuse the spyware, but critics question its record, the Times said.
(Pictured: European Parliament member Anna Donáth delivers a speech protesting the alleged use of Israeli-made spyware to target phones, including those of journalists, in Budapest, Hungary, on July 26, 2021.)
An Atlantic Council report from March 1, 2021, looked at the market growth for intrusive technology. It advocated that the U.S. and its NATO partners work together in “naming and shaming” countries that allow the sale of such tools to authoritarian governments.
IMAGE CREDIT: AFP/GETTY IMAGES