State Department Seeking Feedback on Guidance for Surveillance Exports

The State Department is seeking feedback to inform its development of a draft guidance for exports of hardware, software and technology with “surveillance capabilities,” the agency said in a Sept. 4 press release. The guidance will give exporters insight “on considerations to weigh prior to exporting these items” and will give “businesses greater understanding of the human rights concerns the U.S. government may have with the export,” the press release said. Comments are due Oct. 4.

The guidance -- attached to the press release -- contains a series of “due diligence and risk mitigation considerations” for U.S. companies, including how to tailor an item to “minimize the likelihood that it will be misused to commit human rights violations,” how to review possible end-uses for the exported item, how to review the human rights record of the end-user country and how to review “stakeholder entities” involved in the transaction. The guidance also includes suggestions for including safeguards in contracts to protect against human rights violations and urges companies to publicly report their export transactions and due diligence involved.

The guidance also contains an appendix on other government and non-governmental tools companies can use for compliance, and a list of laws, regulations “and government practices that place the item at a higher risk of misuse."