Texans don’t shy away from a fight.
The Lone Star State leads the nation in protecting our citizens and assets against malign foreign influence. With today’s digitized economy, one of the most critical layers of protection is for our data and privacy.
Washington has moved too slowly on data and privacy protection. That’s why our state legislators took matters into their own hands by enacting the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, which passed Texas’ House and Senate unanimously and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2023. The TXDPSA is a bipartisan, good-government win.
The TXDPSA went into full effect on July 1, just in time to protect Texans against threats from China’s government. The law ensures that Texans have rights over their own personal data, along with privacy protections against corporations, both foreign and domestic, that do business in the Lone Star State.
As we enter into a new era of cyberwarfare and espionage, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is America’s most comprehensive foreign threat. The party views digital applications as espionage tools to seize as much American data as possible for Beijing’s use. Unbeknownst to many Texans, Temu, the Chinese e-commerce giant that has spent billions of dollars marketing to Americans, is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arsenal of such tools.
While Temu is not explicitly mentioned in China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, as a company based in the People’s Republic of China, Temu and its parent company are subject to the law’s requirement to turn over consumers’ data to the Chinese government, as outlined in a Department of Homeland Security report: “A PRC intelligence agency may request that any PRC firm or entity secretly share access to a U.S. business or individual’s data, or otherwise face penalties.”
Like TikTok, Temu is another Trojan horse for the Chinese.
Temu is part of a long-term, comprehensive strategy that China has been implementing in the United States for the better part of the last decade, using social media, advertising and e-commerce platforms to gain access to our data. The Temu app has infiltrated our homes, schools, military bases and hospitals, and that’s just the beginning.
As of May 2024, Temu had approximately 50 million users in the U.S. — approximately one third of all users across the globe, according to Sensor Tower.
To be blunt: The Chinese won’t stop unless we stop them.
The good news is that Americans are beginning to take notice and take legal action. According to a high-profile class-action lawsuit filed in Illinois, Temu has “wiretapped the electronic communications of its website visitors and failed to alert customers of a data breach.” The lawsuit continues saying that Temu “is purposefully and intentionally loaded with dangerous malware and spyware activities on user devices … all while going to great efforts to intentionally hide the malicious intent and intrusiveness of the software.”
It’s time for Texas to get in the fight.
Gov. Abbott has led the fight against China’s technological influence by enacting a Model Security Plan for Prohibited Technologies, which has become a national blueprint. Abbott banned TikTok and a series of other applications on official state devices and broadband. Abbott should add Temu to this prohibited list. In fact, the app should be banned as broadly as possible in any interaction with Texas’ government, which the security plan allows.
Next, Texas should eliminate its financial exposure to Temu and other adversary companies. For example, Texas’ ERS pension fund holds shares of PDD Holdings, which owns Temu.
Recently, Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a Data Privacy and Security Initiative to protect Texans from foreign companies attempting to harvest American data. Paxton should immediately use his authority to launch a consumer protection investigation into Temu and its ties to Beijing. If evidence justifies it, Temu’s activities should be broadly curtailed within the Lone Star State to protect Texas consumers. Giving China’s government access to our cellphone data provides seamless access to our biometrics, home addresses, credit card information and more.
In addition to investigating Temu, Paxton should also lead the charge against China’s infiltration by rallying other states’ attorneys general into taking a stronger stance against Temu. Turning a blind eye to China’s proxies puts all states in danger.
Texas must make it unequivocally clear that if China wants to launch a spy campaign in the Lone Star State, they’ll be met with the full force of our government. Unlike Washington, D.C., here in Texas, we know how to quickly and decisively recognize and eliminate threats. With a crystal-clear Chinese threat in our state, it’s time to act.
Michael Lucci is the Founder and CEO of State Armor, a research nonprofit focusing on state policy solutions to global security threats.