EU Lawmakers Back Exports Control on Spying Technology

An anonymous reader shares a report: EU lawmakers overwhelmingly backed plans on Thursday to control exports of devices to intercept mobile phone calls, hack computers or circumvent passwords that could be used by foreign states to suppress political opponents or activists. Members of the European Parliament's trade committee voted by 34 votes to one in favor of a planned update to export controls on "dual use" products or technologies. The EU has had export controls since 2009 on such dual use products including toxins, laser and technology for navigation or nuclear power, which can have a civilian or military applications but also be used to make weapons of mass destruction. The EU has felt that spyware or malware and telecom of Internet surveillance technologies are increasingly threatening security and human rights and proposed a modernization of its export control system to cover cyber-surveillance.

logic

[phantomfive]

Here is a quote from the article about their motivation:

"The move is part of the EU’s strategy to take advantage of the trade vacuum left by more protectionist U.S. President Donald Trump both in terms of striking trade accords with other countries and setting values for global trade."

It appears the trade commission decided to increase trade by restricting trade, and creating regulations that make no sense. (Are they really going to stop the export of computers and SDR? Not that those are made in Europe anyway, but why let that stop a futile gesture?).

Hey, let's cheer them on, at least they aren't starting any wars or insulting other world leaders.

(PS I lied, looks like AMD has a fab in Europe [wikipedia.org]. Careful, those are usable for hac

Re:logic

[Plammox]

Are they really going to stop the export of computers and SDR? Not that those are made in Europe anyway, but why let that stop a futile gesture?

I know at least one deep packet inspection equipment maker [napatech.com] here, off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many others.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

They are introducing measures to increase trade, but one provision of those new measures is to safeguard the EU's moral stance on the export of surveillance equipment to states where it might be abused.

Unfortunately they don't seem to be including the UK on the list of abusers, but it's still better than nothing.

Re:

[phantomfive]

Ah, I see what you are getting at. According to you, they are saying, "We don't want these devices to be used to oppress citizens, so we won't let them be exported." Whether or not they will succeed is one thing, but at least they are trying.

Re:

[BlueStrat]

...they are saying, "We don't want these devices to be used to oppress other nation's citizens just our own so we won't let them be exported."

FTFY

After all, if they have strict restrictions on exporting them who do you think will be buying and using most of them?

Strat

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

That's it. Of course those devices will still leak out, I'm sure. But if EU based companies can't sell directly or provide any support to people in those countries, it at least makes them much less valuable. Typically those tools are not plug-and-play, they require training and expertise to use.

Re:

[phantomfive]

Perhaps those regulations don't make sense to you. Likewise, you don't make sense to me.

A stunning analysis based in logic and pure sequitur. Applauded to be you are. Infallible well logic sense is done!

Re:

[phantomfive]

You can find us in Eindhoven at ASML

City of light, woohoo!

what really threatens human rights?

[sittingnut]

"The EU has felt that spyware or malware and telecom of Internet surveillance technologies are increasingly threatening security and human rights"

greatest threats to individual security and human rights comes not technologies, used by random harmful people, but from modern states(or would be states) like eu, usa, china, russia, etc., all of which now seem to operate beyond democratic accountability and corrupt to the core, and monopolistic corps(especially technological conglomerates like amazon, google, fa

Re:

[Opportunist]

Like... say ... Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Germany, France...

Re:

[Opportunist]

Those are basically the only countries in Europe that could possibly be considered "left", so what the hell is the GP talking about?

Encryption being encouraged in the same ruling

[freax]

In the same ruling they are also encouraging the use of encryption and explicitly stating that EU states must not ban the use of encryption [europa.eu].

You can't export spying technology!

[Opportunist]

We barely have enough of it to keep our own citizens under control, if China wants to spy on their people they can bloody well do that themselves, too!

Accidental export ban on telecom equipment

[The Cynical Critic]

Banning the export of "dual use" products? They obviously don't know that functionality for being able to listen in on phone calls is a standard feature of telecom backbone equipment and is commonly used for perfectly legal things like criminal investigations and (actual) anti-terrorism. What this means is that European makers of it (or rather the maker of it after Nokia's networks division first merged with Siemens' and then bought out Alcatel-Lucent) need to start making sabotaged versions of their equipm