The European Union said today that it has introduced tighter rules regarding the sale of surveillance technology such as facial recognition and spyware.

New regulations mean companies will have to secure licenses from governments to sell such technologies. Companies will also be expected to assess the possible human rights abuses that could occur from using the tech. If governments do grant licenses, they will have to share the details of those licenses to the public.

“Today is a win for global human rights,” said Marketa Gregorova, a European Parliament lawmaker and one of the lead negotiators of the regulation. “We have set an important example for other democracies to follow. Authoritarian regimes will no longer be able to secretly get their hands on European cyber-surveillance.”

The negotiations have been going on for years and the European Parliament will still have to give its blessing for the regulations to be written in stone. Human rights advocates have criticized Europe in the past for allowing companies to sell surveillance tech to countries with dire human rights records, including China. A recent Amnesty International report said that three European companies have sold surveillance technology to China.

The new regulation may prevent that from happening in the future. It asks that all governments “consider the risk of use in connection with internal repression or the commission of serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law.”

Europe has some large companies that create such technology, but of course so does the U.S. In 2019, it was revealed that U.S. companies were helping China build its surveillance state. “Some of the biggest names in U.S. technology have provided components, financing and know-how to China’s multibillion-dollar surveillance industry,” wrote the Wall Street Journal at the end of the year. Other reports have stated the U.S. has supplied a number of dubious governments with similar tech.

In the U.S. itself, some cities have lately banned the use of facial recognition technology, while some large companies that have invested in the tech have said they won’t sell it to police departments throughout the country. If a bill recently introduced by the Democrats goes through, there’s a chance that facial recognition tech could be banned statewide.

Photo: Christiaan Colen/Flickr