White House order sets restrictions on U.S. government use of commercial spyware

President Biden has signed an executive order banning all federal departments, including defense and intelligence agencies, from using commercial spyware that threatens national security, establishing a set of “novel factors” for determining when use of these “sophisticated and invasive cyber surveillance tools” poses such a risk.

The action springs from a year-long effort to understand the risks associated with spyware, a senior administration official told reporters today, which identified “a significant gap” in guidance across agencies on usage at a...