EU Receives TTC Feedback on End-Use Controls, Intangible Tech Transfers
The U.S. and the EU should focus export control efforts under the Trade and Technology Council (see 2205160033) around end-use and end-user controls, rather than on a technology’s “capabilities,” industry told the EU in comments released May 31. Trade groups also said the U.S. and the EU should better harmonize their restrictions around “intangible” transfers, which have been implemented differently and have caused confusion among companies.
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The U.S. and the EU should specifically use end-use and end-user controls to address human rights concerns, especially when it’s not “practical” or “effective” to “list specific items relevant to such concerns,” companies told the EU during the TTC public feedback period that closed in January. Some companies specifically pointed to facial recognition products or artificial intelligence-powered technologies, which they said are “generally developed from the commercial and consumer sector” and have “beneficial applications” that “outnumber any problematic ones.”
“The positive or negative impact from the technology is therefore the result of who applies the system and to what end,” commenters said, according to the EU.
Several commenters also said “value-based” export controls should be a “key part” of the TTC agenda,” and they should be highly coordinated among countries. The controls “are perceived as rarely effective without pluri-multi lateral adoption or the use of other additional foreign policy tools that reinforce these values,” the EU said.
Commenters also said export controls “based only on performance capabilities are ill-fitted to the rapid pace of development” and are likely to be outdated “almost as soon as they are implemented.” Several commenters advocated for an end-use control approach in the “human security domain” as well.
The EU also received feedback on the “different approaches” to intangible transfers of technologies between the U.S. and the EU. Companies in the semiconductor and digital industry sectors are concerned about the differences, the EU said, especially when applying for a license.
“Companies developing / using cloud services or handling data transfer from across jurisdictions, are often unclear as to whether [a] license is required,” the EU said. Commenters said the EU should adopt guidelines to clarify its definition of “export” to “possibly” align with the U.S. definition.
Others said the EU should clarify how it restricts technology exports when the “electronic transmission is encrypted -- according to mutually agreed standards of protection -- and subsequently decrypted at the receiving end.” This may require the EU to clarify and align the definition of “exporter” when “providing access to controlled technology through electronic means,” commenters told the bloc. “Stakeholders in the aerospace / defense industry advocate that the exporter is the party that controls and provides the access information (e.g., decryption keys, network access codes, or passwords) so that controlled technology can be accessed in a third country.”
Research organizations also asked the EU to clarify some export rules. They said the EU should clarify that “secured remote access from third countries” doesn’t always constitute an export, especially when the access is limited to the researcher, academic or scientist and secured through a virtual private network.
Researchers also said the university or research organization employing the author of a publication should be responsible only for the “first export to the publisher.” They shouldn’t be responsible for “further exports throughout the publishing process.”