U.S. counterintelligence official, Bill Evanina, later told 60 Minutes that the labs were “modern-day Trojan horses,” an effort by the Chinese government to establish a “foothold” to bring in equipment, collect DNA and start “mining your data.” No one in the U.S. took BGI up on its offer.
Evanina’s suspicions highlight a growing tension between the U.S. and China, one that is expected to get significant attention in Washington this fall. The rise of Big Data—the vast digital output of daily life, including data Google and Facebook collect from their users and convert into advertising dollars—is now a matter of national security, according to some policymakers. The fear is that China is vacuuming up data about the U.S.
www.newsweek.com/2022/09/16/beijings-plan-control-worlds-data-out-google-google-1740426.html