US announces new restrictions to curb global spyware industry

The Biden administration has announced new steps to cut off support for the global spyware industry, which it said represented a threat to US national security and counterintelligence interests and has personally targeted dozens of American abroad.

A new state department policy, unveiled on Monday, will allow the US to impose visa restrictions on individuals involved in the misuse of spyware, which the administration also said has been used for years to facilitate repression, restrict the free flow of information and enable human rights abuses.

The move comes three years after the administration placed Israel’s NSO Group on a commerce department blacklist and issued an executive order prohibiting the US government’s own use of commercial spyware.

In a statement, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said the misuse of commercial spyware has been linked to “arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the most egregious of cases”.

The news will probably be met with worry around the world, including among key US allies who are known or suspected to have used spyware against political rivals, journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. They include: India, Rwanda, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Mexico.

More details soon …