Biden to issue executive order aimed at protecting Americans’ sensitive data from China, other ‘hostile countries’
U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris meet with (L-R) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), on February 27, 2024 at the White House in Washington, DC.
Roberto Schmidt | Getty Images
U.S. President Joe Biden will issue an executive order Wednesday intended to safeguard the personal data of American citizens from countries deemed hostile.
The executive order centers on the business of selling people’s personal information, in which companies and so-called data brokers collect and trade data. The Biden Administration is worried that data brokers and other commercial entities will sell this information to “countries of concern-which have a track record of collecting and misusing data on Americans.”
Lawmakers and intelligence agencies have previously expressed concerns that the Chinese Communist Party is amassing a wealth of U.S. data, posing national security concerns.
The order focusses on specific, sensitive information like genomic data, biometric data, personal health data, geolocation data, financial data and other kinds of personally identifiable information.
Hostile countries can use this data “to track Americans (including military service members), pry into their personal lives, and pass that data on to other data brokers and foreign intelligence services,” according to a White House fact sheet.
“The sale of Americans’ data raises significant privacy, counterintelligence, blackmail risks and other national security risks-especially for those in the military or national security community,” the White House said in a release on the new E.O.
“Countries of concern can also access Americans’ sensitive personal data to collect information on activists, academics, journalists, dissidents, political figures, and members of non-governmental organizations and marginalized communities to intimidate opponents of countries of concern, curb dissent, and limit Americans’ freedom of expression and other civil liberties,” the White House said.
The executive order will direct the Department of Justice to issue several regulations intended to protect sensitive data. It will also instruct the Department of Homeland Security and the DOJ “to set high security standards to prevent access by countries of concern to Americans’ data through other commercial means, such as data available via investment, vendor, and employment relationships.”
Additionally, the order directs the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector “to consider the threats to Americans’ sensitive personal data” when they conduct reviews of submarine cable licenses.
“These actions not only align with the U.S.’ longstanding support for the trusted free flow of data, but also are consistent with U.S.’ commitment to an open Internet with strong and effective protections for individuals’ privacy and measures to preserve governments’ abilities to enforce laws and advance policies in the public interest,” the White House explainer read.
Last week, the Biden administration announced an executive order intended to improve the cybersecurity of U.S. ports. For instance, government officials said that 80% of port equipment known as ship-to-shore cranes ports are made in China, and they are concerned that the gear could be compromised and used for surveillance.
Congress has also zeroed in on potential privacy risks posed by the data-broker industry. Last May, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent letters to over 20 companies like Equifax and Oracle, asking for information about their data-collection-and-distribution methods.
“American privacy concerns in the data broker industry are not new, and existing laws do not sufficiently protect Americans’ data from misuse,” the letter said.
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Technology
Amazon was questioned by House China committee over ‘dangerous and unwise’ TikTok partnership
Amazon logo on a brick building exterior, San Francisco, California, August 20, 2024.
Smith Collection | Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images
Amazon representatives met with the House China committee in recent months to discuss lawmaker concerns over the company’s partnership with TikTok, CNBC confirmed.
A spokesperson for the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party confirmed the meeting, which centered on a shopping deal between Amazon and TikTok announced in August. The agreement allows users of TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, to link their account with Amazon and make purchases from the site without leaving TikTok.
“The Select Committee conveyed to Amazon that it is dangerous and unwise for Amazon to partner with TikTok given the grave national security threat the app poses,” the spokesperson said. The parties met in September, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.
Representatives from Amazon and TikTok did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
TikTok’s future viability in the U.S. is uncertain. In April, President Joe Biden signed a law that requires ByteDance to sell TikTok by Jan. 19. If TikTok fails to cut ties with its parent company, app stores and internet hosting services would be prohibited from offering the app.
President-elect Donald Trump could rescue TikTok from a potential U.S. ban. He promised on the campaign trail that he would “save” TikTok, and said in a March interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “there’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad” with the app.
In his first administration, Trump had tried to implement a TikTok ban. He changed his stance around the time he met with billionaire Jeff Yass. The Republican megadonor’s trading firm, Susquehanna International Group, owns a 15% stake in ByteDance, while Yass has a 7% stake in the company, NBC and CNBC reported in March.
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.
Technology
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Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says censorship is still “a dominant threat,” advocating for a more decentralized internet to help better protect individuals online.
Her comments come amid ongoing tension linked to online safety rules, with some tech executives recently seeking to push back over content moderation concerns.
Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, Manning said that one way to ensure online privacy could be “decentralized identification,” which gives individuals the ability to control their own data.
“Censorship is a dominant threat. I think that it is a question of who’s doing the censoring, and what the purpose is — and also censorship in the 21st century is more about whether or not you’re boosted through like an algorithm, and how the fine-tuning of that seems to work,” Manning said.
“I think that social media and the monopolies of social media have sort of gotten us used to the fact that certain things that drive engagement will be attractive,” she added.
“One of the ways that we can sort of countervail that is to go back to the more decentralized and distribute the internet of the early ’90s, but make that available to more people.”
Nym Technologies Chief Security Officer Chelsea Manning at a press conference held with Nym Technologies CEO Harry Halpin in the Media Village to present NymVPN during the second day of Web Summit on November 13, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Horacio Villalobos | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Asked how tech companies could make money in such a scenario, Manning said there would have to be “a better social contract” put in place to determine how information is shared and accessed.
“One of the things about distributed or decentralized identification is that through encryption you’re able to sort of check the box yourself, instead of having to depend on the company to provide you with a check box or an accept here, you’re making that decision from a technical perspective,” Manning said.
‘No longer secrecy versus transparency’
Manning, who works as a security consultant at Nym Technologies, a company that specializes in online privacy and security, was convicted of espionage and other charges at a court-martial in 2013 for leaking a trove of secret military files to online media publisher WikiLeaks.
She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was later released in 2017, when former U.S. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.
Asked to what extent the environment has changed for whistleblowers today, Manning said, “We’re at an interesting time because information is everywhere. We have more information than ever.”
She added, “Countries and governments no longer seem to invest the same amount of time and effort in hiding information and keeping secrets. What countries seem to be doing now is they seem to be spending more time and energy spreading misinformation and disinformation.”
Manning said the challenge for whistleblowers now is to sort through the information to understand what is verifiable and authentic.
“It’s no longer secrecy versus transparency,” she added.
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