The Safety Devices Act law is part of the US government’s efforts to enforce restrictions on Huawei Technologies, ZTE, and other Chinese telecommunications and technology companies from entering into the US telecommunications networks

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Biden has signed the new Safety Devices Act law. (Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America/Wikimedia Commons)

US President Joe Biden has signed a law called Safety Devices Act aimed at barring companies, that are considered security threats, from obtaining new equipment licenses from US regulators.

The Safety Devices Act is part of the US government’s efforts to put restrictions on Huawei Technologies, ZTE, and other Chinese telecommunications and technology companies. It was approved unanimously by the US House of Representatives in late October and earlier that month with 420-4 votes in its favour.

Under the new law, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is no longer required to review or approve applications for approval of equipment that come with unacceptable risks to national security.

The signing of the Safety Devices Act comes just days before an expected virtual summit between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, reported Reuters.

According to FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the Commission has approved over 3,000 applications from Huawei since 2018. The new law will help in preventing insecure devices from firms such as Huawei and ZTE from being brought into the US telecommunications networks, said Carr.

The FCC had designated five Chinese companies in March 2021 as threatening national security under the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019, whose objective is to safeguard the US telecommunications networks. The nominated firms are Huawei, ZTE, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, Hytera Communications, and Zhejiang Dahua Technology.

In June this year, the FCC had unanimously voted to push forward a plan to ban approvals for equipment in the US telecommunications networks from those Chinese firms even as lawmakers sought legislation for mandating it. China at that time had condemned the FCC vote.