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 information on 80 million Americans. In 2015, China hacked the Office of Personnel Management, which holds security clearance information, acquiring sensitive data on 20 million Americans who work for the federal government. In 2017, the Chinese government hacked Equifax, obtaining the names, birthdates, social security numbers, and credit scores of 145 million Americans.

In 2019, Chinese hackers attacked Marriott, gathering information on 383 million guests, including their passport numbers. And, in 2016, a Chinese company even bought the dating app Grindr to harvest its data, including the HIV status of users, before the U.S. government forced a divestiture on national security grounds. These are just a few of the instances we know about.

How will the Chinese Communist Party use this data? In the same way it uses data within China’s borders: to target, to flatter, to cajole, to influence, to coerce, and to even blackmail individuals to say and do things that serve the Party’s interests. This is ‘micro targeting’ beyond an advertiser’s wildest dreams. China, unlike advertisers, will not be stopped by government regulations. The Chinese Communist Party simply wants to know everything about you—just as it likes to know almost everything about every individual living in China.