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Sandvine , the Godhead of surveillance - merchandise that allow authoritarian countries to censor the internet and undercover agent on their citizen , announced that it is leaving dozens of “ non - democratic ” countries as part of a major inspection and repair of the fellowship .
The caller , which was ground in Canada , bring out a statementon Thursday , claiming that it now wants to be “ a technology solution leader for democracies . ” As part of this raw scheme , Sandvine tell it has already left 32 countries and is in the process of leaving another 24 countries .
Sandvine did not name the 56 countries , apart from Egypt , where Sandvine assure to provide by the end of March 2025 . For the remaining rural area — including non - government client in Egypt — the “ end - of - service ” date will be the end of 2025 .
This change in the company ’s guidance comesafter yr of investigations by Bloomberg , which report that Sandvine had sold its net surveillance products to authoritarian regimes , include Belarus , Egypt , Eritrea , the United Arab Emirates , and Uzbekistan .
Sandvine said that it based its conclusion to take from the dozen of countries on a review of its mathematical process based onThe Economist Intelligence Unit ’s 2023 Democracy Index , which categorizes countries based on their “ regime type . ” The company also enjoin it made this decision “ in interview with the U.S. Department of Commerce , the U.S. Department of State , and other key member of the U.S. government . ”
Sandvine did not respond to a petition for comment , asking the society to leave a full list of the country that it has already leave , and that it is plan on leaving .
Earlier this year , the U.S. Department of Commerce put Sandvineon a blocklist — technically know as the Entity List — accusing the company of selling its products to the Egyptian government , which used Sandvine “ in aggregate web - monitoring and censoring to block word as well as point political actors and human rights activists . ”
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In the last few years , digital rights research groupCitizen Labpublished reports about Sandvine , which also exposed the usance of the company ’s applied science inTurkey and Syria , where Sandvine ’s equipment was allegedly used to airt hundreds of users to spyware .
Sandvine ’s service appears to show that the pressure employ by the U.S. governance actions against the ship’s company was in effect , accord to expert .
“ For a longsighted time , we acknowledge about the harm but did n’t know what might efficaciously pump the Pteridium aquilinum on out - of - control surveillance technical school proliferation , ” John Scott - Railton , a senior investigator at Citizen Lab , told TechCrunch . “ Sandvine ’s tailspin show up that the U.S. model , which include sanctions , can have a direct positive impact . ”
Ron Deibert , the conductor of Citizen Lab , agreed , telling TechCrunch that the Sandvine case “ shows what can happen when you have careful evidence - base enquiry , investigatory journalism , and public pastime advocacy combined with targeted and meaningful government regulations . ”
In the last couple of years , the U.S. governance has direct other companies that sell surveillance technology . In 2021 , the U.S. Commerce Departmentput NSO Group on the Commerce Department ’s blocklist , effectively barring U.S. companies from doing business with the Israeli spyware maker , which sell its mobile spyware Pegasus . In 2023 , the U.S. government put Intellexa , a consortium that makes the spyware Predator , on the same economic blocklist .
This year , the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Intellexa ’s founder Tal Dilianand one of his stage business associates . These sanctions , which specifically aim Dilian , rather than his company , have caused other spyware makers to worryabout convey in the U.S. authorities ’s crosshairs themselves .
