<\/p>\n
What Happened:<\/strong> Citing reporting by ProPublica, eight Democratic U.S. senators have criticized the Trump administration\u2019s demands to access the health data of millions of people as a condition of giving lifesaving aid to other countries. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a>, the senators, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, said the U.S. demands were \u201cunprecedented and at odds with U.S. policy concerning the data of American citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n The inquiry into the administration\u2019s approach to foreign health data referred to a ProPublica story published in June about agreements the U.S. struck with African countries<\/a> \u2014 and the risks they posed to people there. Experts told ProPublica that the deals are vague and lack language used in most data-sharing agreements to adequately limit what information is collected and how it can be used. As a result, they said, there is an increased risk that individuals\u2019 personal data could be exposed, misused or commercialized without their consent.<\/p>\n The senators \u2014 who include Tim Kaine of Virginia; Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; Brian Schatz of Hawaii; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Christopher Coons of Delaware; Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who led the effort \u2014 requested a briefing on the healthcare agreements\u2019 data requirements. They also asked Rubio to respond in writing to a list of questions by the end of August.<\/p>\n What They Said:<\/strong> In the letter, which was sent last week, the senators expressed concern that the requirement to access foreign health data might reverberate beyond the countries where the aid agreements were struck and \u201cset international precedents that ultimately harm Americans.\u201d They noted that the demands for data appear to be at odds with the Trump administration\u2019s National Cyber Strategy<\/a>, which emphasizes the right to privacy for Americans and their data.<\/p>\n \u201cThese new demands set an alarming precedent that is seemingly contrary to the Administration\u2019s longstanding support for the privacy of U.S. citizens\u2019 data,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n The senators also laid out the details of a data-sharing agreement between the U.S. and Uganda that were first reported by ProPublica. The deal demanded that Uganda provide the U.S. \u2014 and its contractors \u2014 with logins \u201cor other secure access mechanisms\u201d to directly enter the nation\u2019s health data systems.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile global health programs have historically included data sharing components,\u201d the senators wrote, \u201cthey have never required direct access to privileged electronic systems for U.S. government representatives.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter ends with more than a dozen questions for Rubio, including why the State Department has not made the health care agreements public, as federal law requires, and whether any of the data will be shared with \u201cU.S.-based third parties for any commercial purpose, including to train any artificial intelligence models.\u201d<\/p>\n The senators also asked what privacy rights foreign citizens will have over data that is transferred to the U.S. and how those rights will be enforced in the case of a data breach or another unethical use of their personal information.<\/p>\n Background:<\/strong> After the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development<\/a> and drastically reduced funding for international health work done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Congress required the executive branch to continue providing foreign aid. The State Department has since faced the challenge of finding new ways to get the funding to countries, ensure that it was being spent wisely and address potential pandemics. The task has been especially challenging because the administration cut ties with most of the international partners and fired staff the government had previously relied on to carry out this complex work.<\/p>\n In the past, PEPFAR<\/a>, the U.S. program that provides aid for treating and preventing HIV around the world, built its own systems to handle anonymized data, separate from foreign government health records. In contrast, the Ugandan agreement provides the U.S. with direct access to the government\u2019s own health data systems.<\/p>\n Through separate agreements, the U.S. has also arranged for countries to provide it with specimens of pathogens that could cause pandemics, along with related information.<\/p>\n The effort to establish these new aid arrangements was led by Brad Smith, an entrepreneur who founded three healthcare companies, one of which sold for a reported $2.7 billion. Before joining the State Department, Smith led the government efficiency panel<\/a> that would become the Department of Government Efficiency and oversaw some $67 billion<\/a> in cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n The U.S. agreement with Uganda provides up to $1.7 billion in aid for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, among other diseases. As a condition, the deal calls for the sharing of aggregated data with all personally identifiable information removed and specifies that the information should be used for delivering and auditing healthcare services. But experts told ProPublica that it is possible to reverse-engineer data that has been anonymized.<\/p>\n The shift in the approach to health data is part of the America First Global Health Strategy<\/a>, which is intended to make America \u201cmore prosperous\u201d and \u201cpromote American health innovations.\u201d Rubio explained in September<\/a> that under this new strategy, aid will be given \u201cin a way that directly benefits the American people and directly promotes our national interest.\u201d<\/p>\n Why It Matters:<\/strong> Privacy experts say that, if health data is mishandled under the agreements, it could have serious consequences. Revealing healthcare histories, including whether someone has had an abortion, a mental health condition, substance-use treatment or a sexually transmitted disease can be devastating anywhere. In Africa, research has shown it can lead to discrimination and violence<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the age of artificial intelligence, health data has become especially valuable. But the agreements reviewed by ProPublica provide no guarantee that Africans subject to them will have a say in how their data is used or whether they would receive any potential financial benefits.<\/p>\n Response:<\/strong> The State Department declined to answer specific questions about the senators\u2019 letter, saying that it does not respond to questions about congressional correspondence. In a statement sent to ProPublica, a State Department spokesperson defended the data requirements in the health agreements.<\/p>\n \u201cNeither the U.S. government nor any private American companies receive or review any personally identifiable information (PII) under these data sharing agreements,\u201d the statement said, going on to note that the new deals \u201cshare only the same kinds of aggregated, de-identified data that has been shared and used for years in the fight against HIV\/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases. All data sharing is consistent with each country\u2019s laws and approvals.\u201d The spokesperson also said no country has been coerced to sign the agreements with the U.S.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What Happened: Citing reporting by ProPublica, eight Democratic U.S. senators have criticized the Trump administration\u2019s demands to access the health data of millions of people as a condition of giving lifesaving aid to other countries. In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the senators, including minority leader Chuck Schumer, said the U.S. demands…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1103,4992,912,764,1133,62,81,2564,289],"class_list":["post-3065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-administrations","tag-criticize","tag-data","tag-demands","tag-foreign","tag-health","tag-propublica","tag-senators","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}