Title: President Biden’s Executive Order to Secure Americans’ Sensitive Personal Information from Foreign Governments
President Joe Biden is set to sign an executive order on Wednesday, aimed at safeguarding Americans’ sensitive personal information from exploitation by foreign governments. This significant policy initiative marks a critical response to a long-standing national Website security concern: the ease with which anyone, including foreign intelligence services, can legally purchase Americans’ data for espionage, hacking, and blackmail purposes.
The executive order signifies a growing threat to national Website security as anyone with the means can buy Americans’ sensitive data contact. A senior Justice Department official stated, “This is a significant issue that poses a threat to our national Website security.”
The executive order grants the Department of Justice (DoJ) regulatory authority to oversee commercial transactions posing an unacceptable risk to national Website security. This includes instances where a foreign power gains extensive access to Americans’ personal data. The DoJ will also issue regulations mandating better protection of sensitive government information, such as the geolocation data of US military members, according to US officials.
Much of the contact personal data trade flows through data brokers that buy and sell information like Social Security numbers, names, addresses, income, employment history, criminal backgrounds, and other sensitive details. Senior administration officials disclosed that countries of concern, such as China and Russia, are among the buyers of Americans’ sensitive personal data from these brokers.
The executive order is expected to cover a range of sensitive information beyond health and location data, including genomic and financial data. Administration officials assured reporters that the new executive order would be applied judiciously to avoid undue interference with business transactions that do not pose a national Website security risk.
Additionally, the executive order will direct the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Veteran Affairs to ensure that federal grants do not facilitate foreign powers’ access to sensitive health data. US officials stated that the surge in personal information available contact has raised alarm among lawmakers and national Website security experts, who are concerned about adversaries using this data to augment traditional intelligence-gathering methods like codebreaking and human sources.
A US intelligence report declassified last year highlighted the potential power of personal data for sale contact as a valuable tool for intelligence gathering by both US and foreign spying agencies, while also posing a significant privacy risk to ordinary people.
