(DailyDig.com) – On February 28, President Biden issued an executive order (EO) intended to protect American citizens’ personal data from hostile countries. The data this order aims to protect include health and biometric records, geolocation, genomic data, and financial information.
Senior officials from the Biden administration reported that with the EO, the US Justice Department (DOJ) and other selected federal agencies will be able to prevent hostile countries, such as China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia, and Cuba, from gathering personal information on citizens. Companies and data brokers have collected this information to sell or trade with these countries, which poses concerns for national security, according to intelligence agencies.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been amassing US data that contains sensitive information in order to spy on the US and especially US service members, as expressed by intelligence agencies and lawmakers.
Merrick B. Garland, Attorney General, issued a statement that said these hostile countries use this data for blackmail, cyberattacks, and espionage. They also target people they believe are dissidents and could benefit their cause, as well as any other type of malicious activity that will pose a security threat to the US.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the DOJ will develop regulations, which the EO authorizes them to issue, that will protect any sensitive information. These agencies will enact standards that will prevent hostile countries from obtaining this information from employment records, vendor contracts, and investments.
State, Treasury, and Commerce agencies will be included in the regulations developed, which will allow them to create rules covering decisions in licensing and the “persons covered” by these rules, according to the EO fact sheet. This would regulate all US citizens’ information transactions by the “persons covered” who have been determined to have a direct link to hostile countries.
The EO will safeguard indirect and direct transfers of personal information. This puts data brokers on watch to thoroughly vet their customers, and they will never trade or sell the data they purchase from them to any of the nations considered hostile to the US.
Copyright 2024, DailyDig.com
