On 2 November, the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee reported favorably the Moving Americans Privacy Protection Act (H.R. 1568). Approval of the bill had the unanimous support of all 41 members of the committee who were in attendance. On 9 March, the U.S. Senate passed the Senate companion bill (S. 758) to H.R. 1568 under unanimous consent.
“Worldwide ERC® has been working for nearly 10 years with our champions on Capitol Hill and industry partners toward passage of the Moving Americans Privacy Protection Act," said Michael Jackson, WERC’s vice president for member engagement and public policy. “We have never been closer to sending the bill to the president’s desk and greatly appreciate the leadership of Congressmen Waltz and Pascrell and Senators Daines, Peters, Marshall, and Stabenow."
The Moving Americans Privacy Protection Act, or MAPPA, would help protect the sensitive personal data of transferees and military personnel shipping their household goods to the U.S. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is required to sell the manifest data on vessel shipments into the U.S. to data brokerage firms that post the information online to paid subscribers. Making public the personally identifiable information (PII) of the transferee, including military personnel, exposes them to identity theft, fraud, and unwanted solicitations.
While it is not the intent of the CBP to release the sensitive data of individuals, the manifests currently provided to data brokers often include the PII of transferees and military personnel. The data brokers post the manifest information online to provide an analysis and trends on shipments not intending to expose the PII of transferees. MAPPA would direct CBP to remove the sensitive data prior to providing the manifest information to data brokers.
With the approval of MAPPA by the Ways and Means Committee, the House champions of the bill are pushing for an expedited vote by the full House of Representatives. The objective is for Congress to send the bill by the end of the year to the president for his signature.