After severely limiting exports of technological equipment and investments in China, US President Joe Biden is now attacking the “digital gold” of personal data, which he wants to prevent from being exploited by China, via a decree supposed to “protect the personal data of Americans”.
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The decree, which must be made official on Wednesday, aims to “prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans’ personal data to sensitive countries and provide the necessary safeguards” in this area, according to a press release published early in the morning by the House. -White.
For Washington, the “sensitive countries” are Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela as well as Cuba and of course China, the most advanced country of all in the development of new technologies and the collection of data worldwide.
Washington fears that this collection, beyond providing access to Americans’ data, could be used to profile journalists, activists, dissidents or political opponents, in order to intimidate them or put pressure on them.
And the data considered sensitive by the decree is particularly broad: this concerns health or financial data, as well as the genome, biometrics and even geolocation.
“Hostile foreign powers are weaponizing the data collected and the capabilities offered by artificial intelligence (AI) in order to target Americans,” denounced, in a separate statement, the Deputy Department of Justice, Matthew Olsen.
“Bad actors can use this data to track Americans, interfere in their personal lives and transmit (them) to specialized brokers or foreign intelligence services,” stressed the White House, for its part, to justify this decision.
A decision which, however, did not rejoice the Software Alliance, the main grouping of companies managing data centers in the United States, worrying about possible “unintended consequences”, affecting a certain number of commercial activities or research.
“Policymakers should exercise restraint before introducing new restrictions that could have a broad impact on different industries,” said the group’s vice-president, Aaron Cooper, quoted in the press release.
“Uncertainty for businesses”
For William Reinsch, senior advisor at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), the White House could “specify which categories of data can be exported and which will require specific authorization.”
“This will inevitably lead to large gray areas which will force companies to seek clarification from the Department of Justice,” he added to AFP, estimating that this is “a significant uncertainty for companies, not only data brokers but also those that work largely abroad and regularly browse their data.
This decision comes as the collection and especially the use of data is gaining importance with the development of AI, as well as electric and intelligent vehicles, which are often clad in sensors, allowing trace tracking, and whose The main players today are Chinese.
“The sale of Americans’ personal data represents a significant risk in terms of privacy, counterintelligence, blackmail and other national security risks,” the White House also estimated.
The issue of data management and its transfer abroad has become an essential subject for all governments around the world.
The European Union (EU) has long sought to protect the personal data of Europeans collected by American companies and to ensure the conditions for their transfer to the United States or their storage in Europe, as well as their access by external entities.
The EU has notably implemented its European regulation on digital markets (DMA) as well as that on personal data (GDPR) which set very precise rules for all companies, particularly American ones, on the management of the personal data of Europeans. as well as their transfer.
Beijing, for its part, on Monday called on national companies and local governments to better protect their data, particularly against cyberattacks.
A Chinese company, I-Soon, an IT service provider, was accused on February 21 of having infiltrated the systems of a dozen governments, pro-democracy organizations in Hong Kong as well as NATO.
