The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act (H.R. 7520) would prohibit data brokers from selling Americans’ personally identifiable information to foreign adversaries, including countries such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. If data brokers are caught selling sensitive information such as location or health data to these countries, they could face penalties from the Federal Trade Commission. The bill passed the House of Representatives smoothly, with all 414 members who voted choosing to pass it.
McMorris Rodgers and Pallone said in a joint statement Wednesday that the legislation “builds on our efforts to pass H.R. 7521 in the House last week — with overwhelming bipartisanship support – and is an important complement to more comprehensive national data privacy legislation, we remain committed to working together.”
Unlike the TikTok bill, the bill does not name individual companies. But it imposes broad restrictions on the ability of data brokers to “sell, license, lease, trade, transfer, publish, disclose, provide access to, or otherwise provide sensitive data of U.S. individuals” to foreign adversaries or organizations they control. It also gives the Federal Trade Commission the power to enforce the legislation.
Sensitive data covered by the bill includes biometric and genetic information, Social Security numbers, health diagnoses or treatments, and precise geolocation data.
If the bill passes the Senate and is signed by the president, it would bring significant improvements to Americans’ data privacy — but that said, the bar would be relatively low. Discussions of broader privacy laws have died down in recent years, but energy and business leaders expressed hope that their overwhelming support for the Data Brokers Act would push Congress forward with more ambitious privacy legislation. “We are encouraged by today’s vote, which will help advance this important bipartisan legislation, as well as more comprehensive privacy legislation, into law this Congress,” McMorris Rogers and Pallone said in a joint statement. .”