In a bold move to protect national security, the U.S. Justice Department announced sweeping new rules on October 21 designed to block foreign adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran from accessing vast troves of American personal and government data. The regulations, which follow an executive order from President Joe Biden earlier this year, target data brokers and businesses that could funnel sensitive information to hostile nations.
These new rules are a direct response to growing concerns over foreign cyber attacks, espionage, and the use of health and financial data for blackmail. The rules specifically outline protections for data sets that include human genomic information on more than 100 Americans or personal health and financial data for over 10,000 individuals.
The restrictions don’t stop with China, Russia, and Iran—the policy also applies to Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea. The U.S. is now moving aggressively to prevent these nations from exploiting accessible American data in any form, particularly information on federal employees or data that could be weaponized in cyber attacks. Transactions involving U.S. data will be banned if companies know the information could be transferred to these “countries of concern.”
This move marks a significant escalation in the U.S.’s long-standing battle over trade, technology, and data security. In 2018, the U.S. blocked China’s Ant Financial from acquiring MoneyGram due to fears over data security, and these new rules extend that vigilant approach to a broader range of sensitive information. By tightening control over data flows, the U.S. hopes to curtail the ability of hostile nations to compromise American privacy and security, solidifying its stance in the escalating global struggle over cyber dominance.
