Republican AGs Bullish on Protecting Consumer Data from Chinese Communist Party

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  • A group of 14 Republican AGs wrote a letter to the CEO of Webull Financial LLC, inquiring into whether Webull—which is both a U.S. and Chinese company—may have exposed customers’ personal information to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in violation of U.S. data privacy and consumer protection laws.
  • In the letter, the AGs note that Webull, a U.S. registered broker-dealer, collects and maintains its U.S. clients’ personally identifiable information, including social security numbers and other sensitive personal and financial information. The AGs express concern that Webull is misleading customers about the privacy and security of their information, and that that these concerns have been exacerbated by recent enforcement actions against Webull by FINRA and the Massachusetts Securities Division, both of which—according to the AGs—found troubling compliance failures at the company.
  • The letter requests that Webull answer a series of questions about its ownership and connections to the CCP, its employees and operations in China, and its compliance with all relevant federal and state regulations, including those governing consumer data privacy.
  • We have previously reported on state AG actions relating to Chinese-owned TikTok, including the Montana AG’s defense of the state’s TikTok ban, and the Utah AG’s consumer protection lawsuit against TikTok.

DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.

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