Lawmakers warn data protection rules don't protect key sites, including White House and CIA

Source: AP

Updated 12:22 PM EDT, May 21, 2026


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration spent almost a year crafting regulations to block U.S. adversaries from buying commercial data gathered from cell phones at the federal government’s most sensitive locations. The resulting rules, however, have a few gaps. Left off the list of 736 sensitive locations were the White House, Congress and the CIA’s headquarters, among others, according to a warning issued Thursday by three congressional Democrats.

“The sale of Americans’ location data by data brokers poses a serious threat to U.S. national security, particularly when data about U.S. government employees is sold to foreign governments,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Trump administration officials. “Such data can reveal sensitive information that can be exploited for espionage purposes.”

The letter, which was signed by Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, and Rep. Sara Jacobs of California, urged the Trump administration to address the oversights and create a “protection zone” that encompasses the entire Washington, D.C. region rather than choosing individual buildings. They also urged the Department to expand the list of countries of concern that were barred from acquiring data on Americans.

A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to comment. The office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/data-brokers-cell-phones-tracking-government-installations-white-house-congress-8a37641ef83b7c2861287d5c12847d11