House passes bill banning data brokers from selling personal data to foreign adversaries

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A week aft the House of Representatives passed a measure that seeks to unit TikTok to abstracted from its Chinese genitor company, it passed a 2nd measure that aims to support Americans’ information from overseas adversaries.

The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, oregon HR 7520, would prohibit information brokers from selling Americans’ personally identifiable accusation to overseas adversaries, including countries similar China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Data brokers tin look penalties from the Federal Trade Commission if they’re recovered to person sold delicate accusation similar determination oregon wellness information to these countries. The measure sailed done the House, with each 414 lawmakers who voted opting to walk it.

The bill, led by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ), was unanimously voted retired of committee alongside the TikTok measure that similarly passed the House with wide support. Lawmakers anticipation the operation of authorities volition support US net users and safeguard US nationalist security.

McMorris Rodgers and Pallone said successful a joint statement Wednesday that the authorities “builds connected our efforts successful the House past week to walk H.R. 7521 — with overwhelming and bipartisan enactment — and serves arsenic an important complement to much broad nationalist information privateness legislation, which we stay committed to moving unneurotic on.”

Unlike the TikTok bill, this 1 does not sanction idiosyncratic companies. But it imposes a wide bounds connected information brokers’ quality to “sell, license, rent, trade, transfer, release, disclose, supply entree to, oregon different marque disposable delicate information of a United States individual” to overseas adversaries oregon organizations they control. It besides gives the Federal Trade Commission authorization to enforce the legislation.

The delicate information covered by the measure includes biometric and familial information, Social Security numbers, wellness diagnoses oregon treatments, and precise geolocation data.

If it passes the Senate and is signed by the president, the measure would supply a important uptick successful information privateness for Americans — but that said, the barroom for that is relatively low. Discussions astir a broader privateness instrumentality person withered successful caller years, but the Energy and Commerce leaders accidental they’re holding retired anticipation that the overwhelming enactment for the information broker measure tin get Congress moving connected much ambitious privateness legislation. “We’re encouraged by today’s beardown vote, which should assistance physique momentum to get this important bipartisan legislation, arsenic good arsenic much broad privateness legislation, signed into instrumentality this Congress,” McMorris Rodgers and Pallone said successful their associated statement.