Biden to Ban Government Use of Commercial Spyware

President Biden passed, on Monday, an Executive Order that precludes the use of commercial spyware by the US Government that poses risk to national security, according to a press release by the White House.
The plethora of commercial spyware poses distinct and growing counterintelligence and security risks to the United States, mainly for Government personnel and their families.
The release said that many “foreign governments around the world, moreover, have deployed this technology to facilitate repression and enable human rights abuses, including intimidating political opponents and curbing dissent, limiting freedom of expression, and monitoring and targeting activists and journalists.”
The misuse of commercial spyware is not limited to authoritarian countries, “democratic governments also have confronted revelations that actors within their systems have used commercial spyware to target their citizens”.
Commercial spyware is an advanced cyber-surveillance means to access electronic devices remotely and extract their content without the knowledge of the devices’ users.