Washington:
The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday proposed new rules to prevent federal government data or large amounts of Americans' personal data from getting into the hands of countries like China, Iran and Russia by imposing new limits on certain business transactions.
The proposal, previewed in March, implements an executive order issued by President Joe Biden earlier this year that aims to prevent foreign adversaries from using accessible U.S. financial, genomic and health data for cyberattacks, espionage and blackmail.
In addition to China, Russia and Iran, the rule would also apply to Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
Washington is trying to stem the flow of US personal data to China, part of a years-long battle over trade and technology.
In 2018, a U.S. panel that reviews foreign investments for potential national security threats rejected a plan by China's Ant Financial to acquire U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram International, citing concerns about the security of data that could be used to identify U.S. citizens .
The officials said transactions with data brokers who know the information will end up in “countries of concern” will be banned, as will the transfer of data on U.S. government personnel.
Monday's proposal for the first time provided more specific details about the types and amounts of data that cannot be transferred, including human genomic data from more than 100 Americans or personal health or financial data from more than 10,000 people.
The proposal would also ban the transfer of precise geolocation data on more than 1,000 U.S. devices.
The rule would allow the Justice Department to enforce compliance through both criminal and civil penalties.
U.S. officials told reporters on Monday that Chinese apps like TikTok could fall foul of the proposal if they passed sensitive data from U.S. users to a Chinese parent company.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Our staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
