Governments Are Clamping Down On Foreign Tech Investments
State inspection of foreign investments at home isn’t novel. Probing NGOs and mandating registration of foreign lobbyists are just two decades-old examples. What’s different today is that countries are accelerating and expanding these powers where they already exist, or freshly architecting them altogether. It’s a way for governments to address two things: perceived foreign influence over their domestic technology spheres, and perceived risks of foreign governments using investments and acquisitions to access sensitive data.