Bipartisan legislation recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would prevent data brokers from non-adversarial nations from purchasing U.S. service members’ data and then selling it to adversarial nations such as China, Iran, North Korea and Russia.
The Protecting Military Servicemembers Data from Foreign Adversaries Act would make it illegal for a data broker to sell, resell, license, trade, or otherwise provide or make available a military service members list to any adversarial nation. The Federal Trade Commission would be permitted to take action against non-U.S. persons who sell service member data to adversarial nations, and the Government Accountability Office would be require to report within one year on the enforcement of the law and recommendations for its expansion.
The bill also would contractually require that military service members lists bought by foreign data brokers cannot be sold, resold, licensed, traded, or otherwise provided or made available to any adversarial nation.
The bill closes a loophole not covered by the Protecting Military Servicemembers’ Data Act of 2023 that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2024 as part of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced the bill.