US to adopt new restrictions on using commercial spyware
- The executive order responds to growing US and global concerns about programmes that can capture text messages and other cellphone data
- Congress last year required US intelligence agencies to investigate foreign use of spyware
The US government will restrict its use of commercial spyware tools that have been used to surveil human rights activists, journalists and dissidents around the world, under an executive order issued on Monday by President Joe Biden.
The order responds to growing US and global concerns about programmes that can capture text messages and other cellphone data. Some programmes – so-called “zero-click” exploits – can infect a smartphone without the user clicking on a malicious link.
Governments around the world – including the US – are known to collect large amounts of data for intelligence and law-enforcement purposes, including communications from their own citizens. The proliferation of commercial spyware has made powerful tools newly available to smaller countries, but also created what researchers and human-rights activists warn are opportunities for abuse and repression.
The White House released the executive order in advance of its second summit for democracy this week. The order “demonstrates the United States’ leadership in, and commitment to, advancing technology for democracy, including by countering the misuse of commercial spyware and other surveillance technology”, the White House said in a statement.
Biden’s order, billed as a prohibition on using commercial spyware “that poses risks to national security”, allows for some exceptions.
The order will require the head of any US agency using commercial programs to certify that the program does not pose a significant counter-intelligence or other security risk, a senior administration official said.
Among the factors that will be used to determine the level of security risk is if a foreign actor has used the program to monitor US citizens without legal authorisation or surveil human rights activists and other dissidents.
“It is intended to be a high bar but also includes remedial steps that can be taken … in which a company may argue that their tool has not been misused,” said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under White House ground rules.
