September 16, 2022
In an executive order, U.S. President Joe Biden directed the committee, which analyzes foreign investment for national security risks, to focus more on threats to sensitive data, cybersecurity, microelectronics, and artificial intelligence.
He instructed the United States Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to carefully examine transactions that could jeopardize the United States’ leadership in biotechnology and quantum computing technology, as well as transactions that could endanger Americans’ personal data and pose cybersecurity risks.
“The executive order will help guide the committee and should also help businesses and investors better identify early on national security risks arising from transactions to help them determine whether to file with CFIUS,” said one official.
CFIUS directed TikTok’s parent company Bytedance to remove TikTok from the U.S. market during the Trump administration, citing concerns that US user data could be passed on to the Chinese government. TikTok responded quickly by reaching an agreement with Oracle Corp to store the information of its US users without giving ByteDance access, in the hope of addressing US regulatory concerns.
Amid growing speculation that the decree was directed against China as part of the US-China struggle for supremacy, officials said that the new executive order was not specifically directed against China, but that it would examine transactions individually to assess national security risks.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
