President Biden has issued a new executive order with the goal of increasing the protection of personal information through the prevention of mass transfers of personal data to countries of concern.
Companies that collect personal data have a tendency to sell the information to data brokers. There is worry regarding the reselling of sensitive data to countries of concern. According to the White House, bad actors use this personal data to track Americans. Personal data is then often sold to foreign intelligence services for information gathering. Data selling has the potential to invite surveillance, blackmail, and scams. President Biden’s Executive Order includes biometric, health, financial, genomic, and geolocation data as well as other personal identifiers. A major concern was the use of data to enable information collection for intimidation and censorship by countries of concern. The Department of Justice will be responsible for improving government-related data protection. This Executive Order seeks to implement high-security standards to prevent access to American’s data through commercial means. However, the White House made clear that these preventions should not cease the flow of information that is necessary for financial services and is not intended to promote decoupling with other countries.
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