Governing the Global Proliferation of Digital Surveillance Technologies: Lessons from the EU

The chapter engages with the EU’s legal discourse surroundingthe regulation of digital surveillance technologies or so-called spyware.It does so by focusing on the EU’s attempt to regulate the internationalsale of digital surveillance technologies. The urgent need for rule-basedcontrol of the global surveillance technologies market has been on theagenda of the UN, EU, governments, NGOs, and research institutions.Within the EU, a particular legal instrument, known as dual-use exportcontrol, has come under the spotlight as a tool to mitigate human rightsrisks associated with the sale and transfer of spyware. While the fieldof law has developed to mitigate military risks within the EU’s securityand defense policies, it has not yet sufficiently evolved to address themultifaceted human rights risks that the sale of surveillance technologiesmay pose to the destination countries