18th Parliamentary Intelligence-Security Forum – Adversarial Foreign Investments
This panelist focused on adversarial foreign investment. He said that bad actors like to acquire technology, infrastructure (like China in developing countries), data centers, sensible personal data, education, and real estate.
- According to a 2018 statistic, there is $4.3 trillion in adversarial foreign investment
- Adversarial social media companies like TikTok like to collect sensitive personal data in a malicious manner.
- CFIUS objectives:
- National security
- Open investment
- If a foreign investor can’t reach an agreement with CFIUS, investment will be
blocked
- In 2019, only one was blocked
He then later went on to speak on how we are in a digital transformation. This means that companies don’t require physical presence anymore and access to data is becoming an even bigger threat. We need new tools to secure ourselves from foreign investment threats.
