By love-89.com The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced new regulations aimed at blocking countries like China, Russia, and Iran from accessing sensitive American data, including financial information and genomic databases. This includes restrictions on data transfer for platforms such as TikTok, which will no longer be able to send user data to Beijing.
The new rules, announced on October 21, are designed to protect federal government data and large amounts of personal information belonging to American citizens from falling into the hands of six nations: China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. This initiative aligns with an executive order signed by President Biden in February aimed at preventing these countries from exploiting accessible U.S. financial, genomic, and health data for cyberattacks, espionage, and extortion.
The Biden administration has expressed concerns regarding the potential threat of espionage and extortion posed by these nations in light of their ability to acquire vast amounts of personal data on Americans. According to PCMag, the White House is particularly worried about the use of commercial transactions by specific countries to acquire sensitive information, including biometric data, health records, DNA profiles, and geolocation data, in addition to social security numbers and bank account details. Understanding this information can provide foreign governments with insights into individuals’ spending habits, preferences, and visits to sensitive locations such as religious sites and government facilities.
The Department of Justice notes that this type of data can subsequently be exploited for cyberattacks, extortion, and intelligence activities, impacting activists, scholars, politicians, and journalists while enabling these countries to utilize advanced technologies like big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing more efficiently.
The U.S. government has long worked to prevent the outflow of personal data to China, a focus that has evolved amid ongoing trade and technological tensions. For instance, in 2018, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) rejected a bid by China’s Ant Financial to acquire the American money transfer service MoneyGram International due to concerns over how the related data could be used to identify U.S. citizens.
Officials indicated that data brokers aware that their information may ultimately go to “adversarial nations” will face transaction bans, and any data transfers involving U.S. government personnel will also be prohibited. The proposal marks the first detailed announcement regarding the types and quantities of data that cannot be transferred, which includes genomic data from over 100 Americans, personal health or financial data from more than 10,000 individuals, and precise geolocation data from over a thousand U.S. devices.
These new regulations will enable strict enforcement through criminal and civil penalties. U.S. officials warned that if Chinese apps such as TikTok were to share sensitive information about American users with their Chinese parent company, it could lead to violations of these new rules.