US House of Representatives Unanimously Votes against the Sale of US Citizens Data to Foreign Adversaries

• The House unanimously passed a bill that bans data brokers from selling personal data of US citizens to foreign adversaries like North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia
• All 414 members voted in favor of the bill. Currently, it's awaiting approval at the Senate.
• Any data broker violating the law will face direct punishment from the FTC.

The US House of Representatives has passed a historic bill that will prevent data brokers from selling the data of US citizens to foreign adversaries like Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.

If any data broker is found breaching this rule, they'll face investigation and subsequent penalties from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

What makes this a historic event is that the bill was passed unanimously i.e. not a single vote was opposed to it.

The US government has recognized the dangers of foreign adversaries like China having access to American citizens. Hence, in the past few months, we have seen a lot of changes happening around it such as the new bill proposing to ban TikTok if they don't cut ties with its Chinese parent company ByteDance.

The Protecting Americans' Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 is the latest step in this campaign. The bill was sponsored by Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ).

Data brokers sell billions of data elements on nearly every consumer in the United States, including information about children and active members of the U.S. military.Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ)

The list of data includes:

• Financial details
• Identification numbers
• Geolocation
• Genetic details
• Personal chats

He also believed that this bill being passed unanimously would show the Senate the urgency of this action which might speed up the legislation. As of now, there's no official timeline for when the bill will be introduced in the Senate. They are yet to send the bill to the upper house.

For anyone following the news closely lately, this bill might ring a bell. In February, President Joe Biden signed an executive order preventing the sale or transfer of information about US citizens to foreign adversaries. This bill is a lot similar to it but with a narrower scope. Plus, it excludes Cuba and Venezuela from the list.

Read more: Personal data of 81.5 million Indians leaked following ICMR data breach

Are There Companies That Sell Private Data Of US Citizens To Foreign Adversaries?

The bill does not name a specific organization found guilty of selling user data. A spokesperson for the House Energy and Commerce Committee also mentioned that there are no publicly available examples as of now. This is just a general directive for all companies dealing with user data to follow.

Two important pieces of evidence were used as a justification for the bill.

• A classified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence which was originally drafted in January 2022 and said that there's a growing number of commercially-available personal data of users that foreign adversaries can easily access.
• Another report published by Duke University that showed that many personal details of military officers were publicly found online.

If this bill is passed, it will be the only law (apart from the executive order by Joe Biden) governing the privacy of US citizens. The bar for user privacy is pretty low right now but the Energy and Commerce leaders are hoping that this would change that narrative.

In the face of growing cyberattacks from foreign adversaries, a bill like this is the need of the hour.

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