The administration urged the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) to grant licenses for the companies to send and
receive data on the existing 8,000-mile Pacific Light Cable Network. The
undersea fibre-optic cable system connects the United States, Taiwan, the
Philippines, and Hong Kong.
Undersea cables transmit nearly all the
world's Internet data traffic. Meta sought permission to use the
Phillipines-to-United States portion, while Google has asked for permission to
connect to Taiwan.
The companies committed to protect the
privacy and security of Americans' data, particularly against China's
intelligence operations.
The plan by Google and Meta abandoned a
previous proposal to use the network's cable to Hong Kong, which is controlled
by Beijing. Multiple US government agencies recommended blocking that plan in
2020.
The Justice Department said the national
security agreements with Google and Meta were needed given China's
"sustained efforts to acquire the sensitive personal data of millions of
US persons."
The Chinese Embassy in Washington and
Google did not immediately comment.
Google said in 2020 it needed the data
connections to handle growing traffic between its data centres in Taiwan and
the United States.
A Meta spokesperson said the "cable
system increases Internet capacity" between the United States and
Philippines "to help people stay connected and share content." The
cables are secure and data is protected through advanced encryption, it said.
Under the agreements, Google and Meta must
conduct annual assessments of risk to sensitive data, and they have to be able
to restrict or stop data traffic on the cables within 24 hours.
Around 300 subsea cables form the backbone
of the Internet, carrying 99 percent of the world's data traffic. © Reuters
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