How can the European Union champion digital rights on the global stage while its own member states are quietly equipping authoritarians with the very tools of repression? We often laud Brussels as a regulatory powerhouse, unafraid to rein in big tech. But a new report suggests that this grand ambition is crumbling under the weight of bureaucratic reinterpretation and commercial interests, leaving ordinary citizens worldwide exposed.
The real story here isn't just that dangerous surveillance technology is still finding its way into the hands of rights violators — it’s that the very mechanism designed by the EU to stop it is being systematically undermined from within, cloaked in a veil of commercial confidentiality. According to a damning Human Rights Watch report, released today in Brussels on May 12, 2026, the EU has “failed to prevent member states from exporting surveillance technology to governments with well-documented histories of using technology to spy on activists, journalists, and other critical voices.”
The Regulation That Lost Its Way
The document, a 54-page deep dive titled “Looking the Other Way: EU Failure to Prevent Surveillance Exports to Rights Violators,” assesses the real-world performance of the EU’s landmark Dual-Use Regulation. Adopted in 2021, this regulation, also known as the “Dual-Use Recast,” was intended to block the export of technologies with both civilian and military applications — including commercial surveillance tech — to regimes likely to use them for human rights abuses. It was a forward-thinking piece of legislation, acknowledging the profound impact such tools can have on personal freedoms.
However, the noble intent has been significantly diluted in practice. Zach Campbell, senior surveillance researcher at Human Rights Watch, minced no words: “The EU is currently doing too little to prevent the export of surveillance technology from its member states to governments who are likely to use it to crack down on dissent.” He urged the European Commission to “take urgent action to change this and provide much needed transparency for surveillance exports.” The report’s findings are based on extensive freedom of information requests across all 27 EU member states, yielding data from nearly half of them, alongside public reports from the European Commission itself.
Undermining Transparency, Enabling Abuse
The crux of the problem lies in the European Commission's own implementation guidelines. In 2024, the Commission issued a recommendation that, according to Human Rights Watch, “has reinterpreted the Dual-Use Recast’s transparency obligations in a manner that has undermined the purpose of the regulation.” Instead of providing the granular detail necessary for public scrutiny, the Commission's reports are so broad they obscure whether the regulation is even working. This isn't just a technicality; it’s an institutional blind spot that directly facilitates abuse.
Despite the Commission's obfuscation, the data gathered by Human Rights Watch paints a clear picture. EU member states are indeed licensing exports of surveillance technology to countries notorious for rights violations. For instance, the report cites evidence of intrusion software and telecommunication interception systems flowing from Bulgaria to Azerbaijan in 2022, and telecommunication interception systems from Poland to Rwanda in 2023. These aren't abstract transactions; they are the gears of a machine designed to silence critics and oppress populations, often far from the public eye.
Profits Over People: The Commission's Stance
When confronted, the European Commission deflected responsibility, stating that EU member states are “solely responsible for licensing decisions on dual-use exports.” Their explanation for the lack of transparency is equally telling: a concern that collecting detailed data might violate “commercial confidentiality or revealing their identity,” given that only a “limited number of companies” were active in exporting such items. This justification raises a fundamental question: at what point do corporate trade secrets outweigh fundamental human rights? The EU’s Dual-Use Regulation was meant to address precisely this conflict, prioritizing the prevention of repression.
As Campbell puts it, “It appears as if EU countries and EU-based surveillance companies are putting profits above people despite adopting one of the most progressive regulations to curtail the sale of this harmful technology.” This dynamic creates a dangerous loophole, allowing sophisticated European-made surveillance tools to be deployed against activists and journalists, undermining democracy and privacy across borders. The regulation's original intent, as outlined on the European Commission's trade website, was to ensure responsible export controls, a goal that is clearly not being met.
What It Means for Ordinary Lives
This isn't merely a Silicon Valley boardroom squabble or a bureaucratic tussle in Brussels. When EU-made intrusion software lands in the hands of an authoritarian government, it directly threatens the safety and freedom of ordinary people: a journalist investigating corruption, an activist organizing a protest, or even a private citizen expressing dissent online. Their right to privacy, freedom of expression, and assembly — even their right to life — can be compromised by technology that should have been stopped at the border. The failure of the Dual-Use Regulation to function as intended means that the EU, inadvertently or not, is facilitating these grave human rights violations.
The European Commission is legally bound to begin an evaluation of the Dual-Use Regulation later in 2026. This moment presents a critical juncture. Without significant public pressure and a renewed commitment to the regulation’s original intent — including new guidelines that mandate real transparency and robust human rights due diligence from companies — this evaluation risks becoming a mere rubber stamp. The true test will be whether the EU finally prioritizes human rights over commercial confidentiality, or if it continues to look the other way, letting its own technology fuel global repression.
