Luna Introduces Bill Protecting Americans' Personal Data on Social Media

Concerns of foreign adversaries stealing Americans' personal data through social media have long been a concern of policymakers. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has introduced a bill that would, among other things, prohibit social media companies from storing data in a physical space located in an adversarial country.

Named the US Data on US Soil Act, Rep. Luna's bill has additional provisions such as preventing officials of adversarial countries such as China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela from accessing the data mentioned above, fining non-compliant companies, and not preempting any state-level privacy laws.

In her press release, Rep. Luna said "Americans daily face the threat of exposing their personal data to bad-actor countries who are looking for a chance to exploit us, simply by opening our phones."

Moreover, she called the bill's protections "long overdue" and added, "A military leader would never hand over his tactics and intelligence to the enemy on a silver platter, and neither should we. My bill would make sure our adversaries can’t have a free-for-all with our personal lives, national security, and strength as a country."

Further discussion of the bill occurred during an appearance by Luna on Fox Business's Mornings with Maria, where she said "a new form of currency right now is information on the American people, whether it is for corporate marketing, targeting for elections, or even whether it is nefarious, and so what we are finding is these platforms like TikTok are actually collecting data on users. They are owned and operated by countries that do not have an invested interest in seeing the United States or Western culture as a whole survive and succeed."

Other Florida Republicans have been calling for pressure or the ban of social media app TikTok, specifically because of its Chinese ownership. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has been among the most adamant, repeatedly calling for a ban on TikTok since November of 2022.

In March, Representative Kat Cammack (R-FL) interrogated TikTok CEO Shou Chew about the app's potential Chinese Communist Party (CCP) connections and allowance of a video that was threatening a member of Congress to remain on the site.