Global surveillance pushback

The U.S. is planning a global push to restrict surveillance tools to authoritarian regimes, senior Biden administration officials told multiple media outlets Thursday.

The initiative among friendly countries would put in place conduct rules for exporting surveillance tools to countries that would use them to suppress human rights, The Wall Street Journal reported.

An agreement would be reached among countries on export-licensing policies to limit technologies to nations that have been accused of using such products to suppress their populations.

“This is a group of like-minded governments who will commit to working together to determine how export controls could better monitor and, as appropriate, restrict the proliferation of such technologies given their increasing misuse by end users in human rights abuses,” a senior administration official told the Journal.

The initiative is set to be announced at the first Summit for Democracy scheduled for on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10.