US restricts exports to Canada’s Sandvine over Egypt censorship

© Reuters

By Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. on Monday placed Canada-based Sandvine Inc on a trade restriction list for allegedly helping the Egyptian government target human rights activists and politicians.

Sandvine, a networking equipment company, was added to the Commerce Department’s “Entity List” for supplying technology to the Egyptian government, “where it is used in mass web-monitoring and censorship to block news as well as target political actors and human rights activists,” according to a posting in the Federal Register, the official U.S. government journal.

Sandvine, which has been accused of helping facilitate surveillance on Egypt’s opposition, supplies what is known as “deep packet inspection technology” which examines and manages network traffic.

U.S. companies are effectively barred from shipping goods and technology to Sandvine with its addition to the list.

The Commerce Department also added China’s Chengdu Beizhan Electronics to the list for illegally acquiring U.S.-origin items on behalf of the University of Electronic Science and Technology, which was added more than a decade ago.

The university is an alias for the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP), which is involved in China’s nuclear weapons program, the Commerce Department has said.

“We will continue to leverage all of our enforcement and regulatory authorities to prevent U.S. technology from enabling destabilizing activities, from mass surveillance and the targeting of human rights activists and political opponents to nuclear weapons programs,” Commerce official Matthew Axelrod said in a statement after the posting.

In addition to Waterloo, Ontario, in Canada, Sandvine’s locations in India, Japan, Malaysia, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates are included on the export control list.

Sandvine did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for the Egyptian embassy in Washington, and the government in Egypt also did not respond. Chengdu Beizhan Electronics could not immediately be reached.

In the same posting on Monday, the U.S. removed Jazirah Aviation Club in the United Arab Emirates from the export control list. Jazirah, a light sport aviation club, was placed on the list in 2018 for its involvement in procuring items for an entity on the Entity List, the U.S. said at the time. The posting said it was removed after a review.