Biden executive order on sensitive personal information does little for now to curb data market – but spotlights the threat the market poses

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Anne Toomey McKenna, University of Richmond

(THE CONVERSATION) The Biden administration has identified “countries of concern” exploiting Americans’ sensitive personal data as a national emergency. To address the crisis, the White House issued an executive order on Feb. 28, 2024, aimed at preventing these countries from accessing Americans’ bulk sensitive personal data.

The order doesn’t specify the countries, but news reports cited unnamed senior administration officials identifying them as China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela.

The executive order adopts a simple, broad definition of sensitive data that should be protected, but the order is limited in the protections it affords.

The order’s larger significance lies in its stated rationale for why the U.S. needs such an order to protect people’s sensitive data in the first place. The national emergency is the direct result of the staggering quantities of sensitive personal data up for sale – to anyone – in the vast international commercial data market, which is comprised of companies that collect,...