Governance and Risk Management, Government, Industry Specific
Vote to restrict sale of sensitive personal data of Americans passes unanimously
Chris Liotta (@Chris Liotta) •
March 20, 2024
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would restrict domestic data brokers from selling Americans’ sensitive personal data to foreign adversaries.
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The Protection of Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act requires the Federal Communications Commission to provide at least 50,000 penalties to U.S. data brokers who sell information to foreign adversaries and entities operating in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. It would authorize civil penalties of $1. The bill is part of an effort to strengthen data protection and further protect the United States from foreign adversaries, said co-sponsor Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. It is said that
In a joint statement with the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D.J.), McMorris said, “Adversaries could compromise the national security of the United States by purchasing sensitive personally identifiable information from data brokers.” We will not allow personal privacy to be compromised.” A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the bill in early March, and the Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously voted in favor of it on March 7.
The bill includes an extensive list defining what constitutes sensitive data, including financial account numbers, government-issued identifiers, biometric and genetic information, geolocation information, health information, and many other types of personal information. I am.
Passage of the bill in the House comes after President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to begin rulemaking that would prohibit the unrestricted transfer of large amounts of sensitive personal data to countries of concern such as China. It was held three weeks after.
Multiple presidential administrations have warned of China’s enormous desire to obtain data on Americans through hacking and commercial transactions. A November 2023 report from Duke University found that data brokers were selling nonpublic information about U.S. military personnel for as little as $0.12 per individual.
An analysis published in February by the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said the executive order is part of a larger U.S. policy shift that “increasingly puts security and digital rights at the forefront of the digital economy’s agenda.” It is said that
Earlier this month, the House of Representatives approved a bill aimed at banning Chinese-owned social media app TikTok unless its owner can find a buyer for the platform in the United States.
Rogers and Pallone said the data privacy bill builds on the TikTok bill and “serves as an important complement to a more comprehensive national data privacy bill” that Congress is seeking to enact.
