Empty Promises? Ron Deibert on the U.S. decision to remove Sandvine from blacklist following promises of “transformative change”

In an interview with CTV Kitchener, The Citizen Lab’s director Ron Deibert discusses the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision to remove Sandvine from the Entity List.

The decision came following the Waterloo tech-firm’s change of ownership and  announcement promising to undergo transformative changes. 

But Deibert says the jury is still out. “I can see there are Sandvine installations operating in a number of very problematic countries and probably will be for a while.”

The Citizen Lab was one of  the first organizations to report abuses of Sandvine technology, including the 2023 Predator in the Wires report which led to U.S. sanctions of Sandvine products.

“The lack of any Canadian regulatory guidance is a glaring problem here,” says Deibert.

The Citizen Lab has written about this in various submissions to Canadian authorities, and again calls on the Department of Foreign Affairs to be more proactive in restricting exports of this type of technology.

In an interview with Waterloo Region Record, Deibert underscores his disappointment in the Canadian government’s inaction on the issue. “Frankly, it is embarrassing that it took the United States to hold a Canadian firm accountable.”