Treat ‘Sensitive Data’ in Chips RFI With ‘Anonymity,’ DOC Urged

Members of five tech and business groups “raised concerns” about the “sensitive data” the Commerce Department seeks in its Sept. 24 request for information about risks in the semiconductor supply chain (see 2109230038), the associations wrote Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo Wednesday. Members also worry “how the U.S. government intends to use the data it collects,” said the Computer and Communications Industry Association, the Information Technology Industry Council, the Security Industry Association, TechNet and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The RFI seeks especially sensitive information from chip companies and their partners upstream and downstream in the supply chain, including confidential sales and sourcing data, plus rundowns on order backlogs and an accounting of specific product shipments in the past month. The associations urge Commerce to treat the information submitted “with the sensitivity and anonymity necessary to avoid jeopardizing the dealings of any given business,” they told Raimondo. Much of the information requested also is “dynamic, with bottlenecks changing on a frequent basis, so we caution that the RFI may not yield information that presents an accurate picture of the semiconductor supply chain,” they said. They encourage Commerce “to consider the nature of this unique challenge and how the information requested through this RFI may unintentionally distort the realities of the semiconductor supply chain,” they said. “This underscores why the ongoing exchange of information and coordination between government and the private sector is vital.” Commerce didn’t comment. With RFI submissions due Monday in docket BIS-2021-0036, ITI, which took the lead in publicizing the letter, didn’t respond to questions about why the groups took more than a month to air their concerns publicly with Raimondo.