Will amended Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act leave Americans' personal data vulnerable?

There goes privacy. As the deadline for the implementation of the newly-amended Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa) is approaching, in a week's time, authorities in the US will have access to all internet data of residents.

Falling in line with the schedule, the Department of National Intelligence, along with Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and Department of Defence will table its interim guidelines to the Federal government over sharing of information. The act which was enforced into a law on 16 December 2015, will reach its scheduled 60-day enactment deadline on 15 February.

New guidelines to be included to the amended act are classification of cyber threat indicators and defensive measures, the process of information sharing with the Federal Government, privacy and civil liberty guidelines and other policies and procedures.

The US Senate and the House passed the Cisa bill that will force companies to share information of cyber attacks with other businesses and the government. This act will empower government agencies to access data, which many tech companies have said would breach privacy.

The debate over information sharing and cybersecurity came to the forefront after a major cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014. Following this, the issue of information sharing was discussed in both the houses, as it would help recover customer data lost during an attack or help prevent it altogether.

The bill is riddled in controversy as personal information of residents will be available to government agencies such as the National Security Agency, FBI and local police. Many internet and technology firms including Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, Dropbox, Yelp and Reddit have raised concerns over sharing customer data.

"This misguided cyber legislation does little to protect Americans' security, and a great deal more to threaten our privacy than the flawed Senate version," Senator Ron Wyden had earlier told Mashable.

Cyber attacks and security breaches have been on the rise in the US. Recently, the US Office of Personnel Management had reported a breach, wherein the department had lost nearly 40 million government records.