Section 4.2
Block China from Obtaining Sensitive U.S. Biological Data
Chapter 04
Section 4.2
4.2A
Congress must conduct oversight of existing policies, and add new authorities as warranted, to ensure that China cannot obtain bulk and sensitive biological data from the United States.
While the United States has not prioritized biological data, China has emphasized its importance to biotechnology innovation, raising concerns about an arms race in genetic data. Beijing harvests and protects its own biological data while taking advantage of unprotected data from abroad.243 With all this data, the Chinese government can link individuals to their genetic information, track their susceptibility to particular health problems, or learn about their ancestry.245
Data also offers military advantages. In the hands of researchers backed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and supercharged with advanced AI, high-quality biological data could enable Chinese advances in using biotechnology to fight wars and to enhance human performance.245 Overall, China’s strategic investments in biological data enhance its global position in biotechnology, contrary to U.S. values and interests.
Recommendation
4.2A
Recommendation 4.2A
Congress must conduct oversight of existing policies, and add new authorities as warranted, to ensure that China cannot obtain bulk and sensitive biological data from the United States.
In some cases, the current federal framework for biological data protection enables foreign and domestic entities to acquire sensitive biological data about U.S. persons through legally permitted bulk data transfers. Recent laws and executive orders have tried to address this concern.
“Sensitive biological data” are data that have the potential to be used to personally identify an individual or group of individuals.
They include but are not limited to human genomic data, other -omics data, and biometric data.
The March 2024 Executive Order (EO) 14117 on Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern is intended to restrict transactions for types of data, including biological data, and to protect that data as sensitive and personal. But there are limitations to relying on this kind of executive branch action, which can be overturned and face legal challenges.246
In 2024, Congress passed the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries (PADFA) Act, which complements EO 14117’s focus on types of data by preventing a range of sensitive data brokerage transactions.247 Future assessments may be necessary to evaluate whether the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) efforts, combined with the PADFA, strike the right balance between national security and the needs of academia and industry.
Congress must conduct oversight of PADFA and EO 14117 implementation (through a DOJ rulemaking) to ensure that China cannot obtain bulk and sensitive biological data from the United States. Such oversight would require hearings from appropriate officials at the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), in which these officials would report on progress made on the data protection mechanisms they are responsible for. Congress should specifically inquire about protections related to bulk and sensitive biological data. Relatedly, Congress should continually assess what new authorities might be needed and necessary to ensure bulk data protections, adding new authorities as needed.
In particular, Congress should assess what biological data types may be sensitive, since new advances and technologies can change biological data types. For example, data related to the microbes that live in the gut were previously considered harmless, but after large-scale efforts of collection and analysis, the same information was shown to carry unique forensic signatures that can be used to identify individuals.248