BIS Considering New Controls on Items Used for Crowd Control, Human Rights Violations
The Bureau of Industry and Security is considering imposing new license requirements on facial recognition software and surveillance-related items that may be used for crowd control reasons or to violate human rights. BIS said in a notice it is reviewing changes to the Commerce Control List and is seeking industry feedback about CCL items that are restricted for crime control and detection reasons. Comments are due Sept. 15.
BIS said it is specifically interested in imposing new license requirements for facial recognition software, “other biometric systems for surveillance,” “non-lethal visual disruption lasers” and long-range acoustic devices and their parts. Changes may include export controls that are “end-use/end-user based” and may affect items designated as Export Administrations Regulations 99 items.
The notice includes a list of items that BIS is reviewing. Along with surveillance technology, the list includes police helmets, fingerprint readers, fingerprint powders, voice print identification systems, polygraphs and “nonmilitary mobile crime science laboratories.”
The review comes as the Trump administration increases export restrictions on shipments to mainland China and Hong Kong over human rights concerns in Hong Kong (see 2007150019 and 2006290063) and in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region (see 2007010040). In the notice, BIS said China uses facial recognition technology in Xinjiang to aid in the mass detention of Muslim minority groups. The agency is looking for industry feedback on controlling “high-resolution cameras” classified as EAR99 and is asking for comments on what resolution or frame rate would be “appropriate” for controls. BIS also wants to understand how to separate cameras that are more likely to be used for police and intelligence end-uses as opposed to “purely commercial” end-uses.
The notice includes similar control questions for the other listed items, and BIS said it wants feedback on the impact of those controls on U.S. industry and competitiveness. In one section, the agency said it is reviewing controls on “additional emerging biometric systems” to expand beyond the two methodologies currently controlled on the CCL: fingerprint and voice print. The agency said it could impose controls “piecemeal” or “extend controls to all biometric systems … and then limit controls to only those types of systems that identify a person without the individual’s cooperation, conscious interaction or possibly even awareness.” The agency said it wants industry feedback about whether “this approach would be better than targeting individual modalities.”