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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 229 / Thursday, December 2, 2021 / Rules and Regulations no answer is to Question 19, expressing concern that the question appears to be an attempt to compel Applicants to provide information they would not otherwise be legally required to provide and if so, USTelecom says it should be made an explicit obligation through other regulatory means. We do not share USTelecoms concerns regarding this question. If Committee staff has any concerns with an answer of no, they may decide to follow up with Tailored Questions.
47. USTelecom also has concerns with the national security implications of certain questions in the section 214
and submarine cable questionnaires Attachments AD. Question 21 in Attachments A/International Section 214 and B/International Section 214
Assignment or Transfer asks if any nonU.S. individuals will have access to any of the applicants facilities, equipment, customer records, and network control features, among other things, and if so, to provide their identity and certain PII.
Question 23 in these questionnaires asks for information about encryption technologies that have been or will be installed in the applicants network.
USTelecom believes that together, Questions 21 and 23 require disclosure of too much network security plan information, and this disclosure could amount to a security risk in and of itself.
We find that USTelecoms concern about over-disclosure of network security plans through responses to Questions 21 and 23 is misplaced and we make no changes to these questions.
The disclosure in this case is solely to the U.S. government agencies most involved in network security issues and for the purposes of assessing risk to U.S.
national security and law enforcement interests. To the extent that an applicant has concerns about co-applicants seeing its responses to Questions 21 and 23, it can mark those responses as sensitive and ask that they not be shared with coapplicants.
48. USTelecom recommends greater clarity surrounding the security expectations of applicants, citing Question 33 in Attachment C/
Submarine Cable Application, which asks what provision will be made to monitor suspicious activity occurring over the paths of the cables, as an example. USTelecom believes that the details regarding what an applicant can and cannot monitor from a practical standpoint can vary widely depending on the arrangement and technical architecture of the submarine cable equipment, and requests that the question be modified to reflect these different arrangements. We understand USTelecoms concern that Question 33

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in Attachment C, as written, may not capture the variations in different cable systems monitoring systems. The Standard Questions must be high-level to a certain extent and applicants may want to consider providing additional details about their monitoring capabilities as part of their response to the Standard Questions to properly frame and explain their responses.
J. Legal Authority for Certain Questions Concerning Broadcasters 49. We reject NABs argument that the Commission should eliminate certain questions in Attachment E/Broadcast Section 310b PDR, because they concern issues outside of the scope of the Commissions jurisdiction and are thus not properly the subject of Committee review. Specifically, NAB
raises concerns with Questions 29,32
30,33 31,34 and 34.35 NAB argues that the Committees review should analyze whether the proposed transaction will implicate national security, law enforcement, foreign policy or trade policy issues arising from the assignment or transfer of the broadcast license, not from other business lines a broadcaster may be involved in or 32 Question 29 asks, Will programming be rebroadcast via satellite or cable? If yes, provide details.
33 Question 30 asks, Will programming be available online? If yes, describe the streaming business operation including what platforms will be used to make the programming available online.
34 NAB Comments at 9 through 10 arguing that Question 31 implicates a Licensees First Amendment rights as well as the Acts prohibition on the Commission engaging in censorship and stating that questions concerning a stations format, target audience, and sources of advertising are not appropriate for Executive Branch review.
Question 31 asks the Applicant to describe the intended viewer/listener base of the Licensees broadcasts, primary language spoken of the target audience, and other demographics, including: a An explanation of how services are offered to each category of viewers/listeners and platform; and b Identification of any specific business or economic sectors that supply advertising or other assistance to either the Licensee or Petitioner.
35 NAB Comments at 9, 1011 contending that the Commission does not regulate consumer data privacy or security of broadcast audiences and has no authority to review broadcasters data privacy and security practices either generally or in connection with proposed transactions. Question 34 asks the Applicant to indicate whether any Relevant Party or any of its subsidiaries that offer application or web-based content collect, process, or store any U.S. subscriber data. If so, identify what types of data e.g., name, address, email address, phone number, credit card number, etc.
are collected, processed, or stored for each U.S.
subscriber. Among other things, Question 34 also seeks the location of U.S. subscriber data storage, who serves as the custodian and/or has access to such data and those individuals countries of citizenship, as well as whether U.S. subscriber data is disclosed to third parties, and the security measures that are intended to protect subscriber data from unauthorized access or disclosure.

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activities the FCC cannot lawfully regulate. NAB contends, among other things, that the Commission does not regulate consumer data privacy or security of broadcast audiences and has no authority to review broadcasters data privacy and security practices either generally or in connection with proposed transactions. We disagree with NAB that these questions should be excluded from Attachment E/
Broadcast Section 310b PDR. The Commission considers national security, law enforcement, foreign policy, and trade policy concerns of foreign ownership in excess of the 25%
statutory benchmarks in its public interest review of petitions for declaratory rulings under section 310b4 of the Act and refers applications with reportable foreign ownership to the Committee, which has specific expertise in these matters. In this regard, the information solicited by the Standard Questions enables the Committee to assess potential foreign influence of such foreign owners over a licensee as part of the Committees review of a particular application for national security and law enforcement concerns. Thus, we are not regulating format or content but are assessing whether the public interest would be served by not permitting foreign ownership in accordance with section 310b of the Act, and information provided to the Committee concerning the nature of the broadcast services, for example, is relevant to the Committees review of the potential for such influence by foreign owners.36 To the extent a broadcast applicant finds that a question raises a particular concern, it should explain that in its response to the Committee, which may send Tailored Questions to the applicant if the Committee requires further explanation.
K. Additional Recommendations Concerning the Submission of the Standard Questions to the Committee 50. By their very nature, Standard Questions that are meant to address a broad range of situations will ask for information that an individual applicant may not find to be specific to its own situation. To the extent that a question is not applicable to an applicants 36 See, generally, 2013 Broadcast Clarification Order, 28 FCC Rcd at 16245 through 46, paragraph 3 stating that the Commissions approach to the benchmark for foreign investments in broadcast licensees has reflected heightened concern for foreign influence over or control of broadcast licensees which exercise editorial discretion over the content of their transmissions. citing Market Entry and Regulation of Foreign-Affiliated Entities, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 10 FCC Rcd 4844, 4884, paragraph 99 1995.

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