Maine’s New Anti-China Cybersecurity Law Takes Effect

The state of Maine’s new laws barring government officials from using or purchasing Chinese hardware and other technologies is officially in effect.

The new requirements from the State of Maine Office of Information Technology (Maine IT), passed this year with bipartisan support from the state legislature, went into effect last week.

The office published the first version of a list of information technology products, companies, and websites originating in foreign adversary nations, such as China, from which Maine will no purchase goods or services.

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“In accordance with the new law, MaineIT will maintain on its publicly available website a list of prohibited technologies and services identified by federal law, regulation or other binding operational directives from the United States Department of Commerce, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the United States Department of Homeland Security, or any other appropriate federal agency as posing a national security risk or a risk to the security and safety of persons of the United States,” said Maine Chief Information Officer Nick Marquis in an internal communication.

The list of companies that state officials are no longer permitted to contract with includes Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies and, most prominently, ByteDance, the Chinese company responsible for the social media platform TikTok, which has been a flashpoint for public controversy as federal officials have attempted to ban it due to significant security risks.

Prohibited Technologies List:

• Dahua Technology Company
• Huawei Technologies Company
• Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Company
• Hytera Communications Corporation
• SZ DJI Technology Company
• ZTE Corporation
• China Mobile International USA Inc.
• China Telecom (Americas) Corp.
• Pacific Networks Corp and its wholly-owned subsidiary ComNet (USA) LLC
• China Unicom (Americas) Operations Limited
• AO Kaspersky LabKaspersky Lab, Inc.
• TikTok, or any successor application or service developed or provided by ByteDance Limited, or an entity owned by ByteDance Limited

Maine IT clarified that the list should be interpreted to include any affiliates or subsidiaries of the prohibited companies and that it is not an exhaustive list, meaning the full universe of persona non grata Chinese companies is much larger.

The state is also forbidden from contracting with any tech companies from foreign adversaries, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, although officials will be permitted to continue using technology already acquired from a banned company prior to the new law.

The new rules provide some exceptions in cases when the technology would be necessary, for example, if law enforcement needed to use TikTok to gather evidence for an investigation.

The new rules became law after they were proposed by Sen. Lisa Keim (R-Oxford), who sought to prevent China or other foreign adversaries from exercising influence on Maine’s local government.

The driving force behind the technology restrictions has been the increasing threat posed by Chinese state and non-state forces, both in terms of national security and corporate espionage.

Governments around the world have expressed concern that Chinese-made technology may operate like a Trojan Horse, allowing malign actors to gain access to critical networks for surveillance and sabotage operations.

Experts on the national security threats posed by Chinese technology used by the U.S. government cited the communist country’s 2017 “National Intelligence Law,” which requires all Chinese-owned tech companies to comply with government orders, including orders to steal information.

Interestingly, the expert group which testified in favor of the bill, China Tech Threat, reported that the prominent Chinese computer company Lenovo also steals information for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but that company was left off the list.

Also left off the list: Chinese solar power panel manufacturers.

When Sen. Keim’s bill was considered in Maine’s House in April, it received unanimous support from representatives but drew less enthusiastic approval from Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine), who allowed it to become law without her signature, a decision that seemingly signaled that she had some reservations about the security measures.