Co-sponsors of the bill, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 5, 2024. Photo: Francis Chung/POLITICO (AP)
The U.S. House passed a bill that would ban third-party data brokers from selling the user data of Americans to geopolitical adversaries like China and Russia. And while it still needs to pass the Senate to become law, it’s a step in the right direction as recent headlines mostly focus on a potential ban on TikTok in the U.S.
The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act, H.R. 7520, passed unanimously on Wednesday, 414-0, and would ban data brokers from selling or disclosing the private information of Americans to any foreign adversary or “any entity of a foreign adversary.”
However, the bill is narrowly targeted and only applies to third-party data brokers. The legislation doesn’t ban American tech companies like Meta, Apple, or X from doing almost anything they want with the data they collect on users. The ban is also on data brokers sharing “sensitive information,” which includes stuff like genetics info, precise geolocation data, and private communications like emails and texts.
Sharing
information
like
an
American’s
Social
Security
number,
passport
number,
and
driver’s
license
number
is
also
banned
by
the
new
law,
though
it’s
entirely
possible
countries
like
Russia
and
China
could
have
this
kind
of
information
already
given
the
relentless
cyberattacks
we
only
learn
about
well
after
the
fact.
As
Politico
notes,
the
fate
of
this
new
data
privacy
legislation
is
uncertain
in
the
Senate,
which
also
has
to
decide
whether
it
will
take
up
the
bill
to
force
ByteDance
to
divest
itself
of
TikTok.
The
bill
would
force
TikTok
to
shut
down
if
the
Chinese
parent
company
couldn’t
or
wasn’t
willing
to
sell.
Notably,
the
new
unanimous
House
bill
passed
on
Wednesday
with
a
much
more
united
front
than
the
so-called
TikTok
ban
bill,
which
passed
the
House
last
week
352-65.
Advocates of the new legislation that passed on Wednesday have pointed out that passing a TikTok ban would be silly as long as private data brokers are still legally allowed to just sell data from U.S. users to China and Russia. This new legislation would fix that loophole. Or, it will, if the Senate decides to take it up.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat from New Jersey, and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington.
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