U.S. to lead global initiative to limit surveillance by authoritarian regimes
President Biden speaks while visiting the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland on Dec. 2. Photo: Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Biden administration on Thursday announced a global initiative aimed to prevent authoritarian governments from using technology for surveillance and human rights abuses, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Why it matters: Many authoritarian governments rely on imported technology to implement state surveillance networks.
- The Chinese government has used U.S. technology to surveil its citizens, modernize its military and target Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Details: The U.S. and allies will create a code of conduct for export licensing and share information on sensitive technologies that are being weaponized against political dissidents, human rights activists, journalists and government officials, per WSJ.
- Export licensing policies authorize specific transactions and control which technologies are shipped out of the U.S., according to the International Trade Administration.
- The new initiative will be announced at the inaugural Summit for Democracy, a virtual gathering that will convene over 100 democratic governments on Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 to tackle the threat of authoritarianism.
- China and Russia are not invited and slammed the gathering as something that will "stoke up ideological confrontation and a rift in the world," the two nations' ambassadors to the U.S. wrote in a November statement.
Worth noting: President Biden has already banned Americans from investing in companies linked to China's military and its surveillance activities.