The writer is international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center
After more than a decade, democratic governments are finally waking up to the hazards of commercial spyware. Recent media coverage has exposed how authoritarian regimes are using NSO Group’s Pegasus software to spy on journalists and politicians. The EU has now tightened its rules on the export of surveillance technology, and the US Department of Commerce last week determined that Israel-based NSO Group and three other hacking companies were “engaging in activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”. However, these modest steps do not go far enough: what’s needed is a global standard to reign in technologies that violate the rights to privacy, free assembly as well as free expression.
From crippling ransomware to questionable neural algorithms which use AI to identify suspicious non-verbal activity, to face and emotion-detecting technologies, there is a proliferation of software applications which conflict with liberal democratic values.