TikTok, Schrems II, and Cross ‐​Border Data Flows

Julian SanchezInformation —you may have heard this one before—wants to be free, and on the global Internet, it flows more freely than ever. Governments are frequently less than sanguine about this fact—often for bad and censorious reasons, but also on occasion with perfectly valid motives, such as the desire to protect national security or the personal privacy of their citizens, which are in many cases overlapping interests. The past month saw developments in two fronts of the perennial struggle to reap the benefits of a borderless network while still maintaining a modicum of control over private data—and I bel ieve it is illuminating to consider them together.TikTok and WeChatIn June, President Bidenformally revoked a pair of his predecessor ' s ill-starred executive orders, which hadsought to effectively ban the popular Chinese-owned social media apps TikTok and WeChat. Both orders had already beentemporarily blocked by courts on First Amendment grounds. Biden ' s replacement order, however, made clear that this was a prelude to developing a more systematic approach to foreign-owned apps, and directed the Department of Commerce (in consultation with other agencies) to prepare a report " recommending additional executive and legislative actions to address the risk associated with connected software applications that are designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a foreign adversary...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs