White House Focused on Privacy Shield Confidence, Cross-Border Flows

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said Thursday the Trump administration is focused on maintaining confidence in the Privacy Shield and preventing international barriers to cross-border data flows and digital trade. OSTP’s Science & Technology Highlights report cites privacy efforts from NTIA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (see 1811090050 and 1812170032). The proper balance is allowing users to “benefit from dynamic uses of their information, while still expecting organizations to appropriately minimize risks to users’ privacy,” the report said. It cites President Donald Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to “prioritize investments” in artificial intelligence R&D (see 1902110054). It referred to Trump's remarks about technologies that “could improve virtually every aspect of our lives, create vast new wealth for American workers and families, and open up bold, new frontiers in science, medicine, and communication.” The report cites Trump signing the first national cybersecurity strategy in 15 years (see 1809200055) and calling for cyber collaboration across all government agencies. It cites efforts to develop the “world’s most powerful and smartest supercomputers” partly through the Department of Energy, advanced computing systems and National Science Foundation cloud computing partnerships.