The Department of Commerce added computer networking company Sandvine Inc. to it’s blacklist earlier this week, alleging the company supplied equipment “to the Government of Egypt” and engaged in censorship.
The department announced Tuesday that it would ban the company from obtaining U.S. technology because of national security concerns.
The “Entity List,” which now has seven entries, identifies organizations where there is reason to believe, “based on specific and articulable facts” that they have been involved with or post a risk to national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.
The company was accused of using information it obtained from mass web-monitoring to block news, as well as target political actors and human rights advocates.
Sandvine is a software company that started in Ontario, Canada, but was acquired by a San Francisco-based company in 2017 and has been combined with Procera Networks.
Its products can be used to monitor large amounts of internet traffic between networks and can be used to target spam and viruses. The technology can also block websites and messaging apps, and carry out surveillance of internet activity, Bloomberg, who first reported the news, said.
The decision to blacklist the company comes after Bloomberg reported last year that Sandvine made sales upward of $30 million in Egypt, including to state-owned companies and government agencies.
It was one of at least a dozen countries where the company’s equipment was utilized by the government to censor online content. It has even been used to hack the iPhone of an Egyptian presidential candidate, the outlet reported.
The Commerce Department’s End-User Review Committee determined that Sandvine should be added to the list under “destinations of Canada, India, Japan, Malaysia, Sweden, and the United Arab Emirates.”
The Hill has reached out to Sandvine for comment.
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