I 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 6605 
To require the Secretary of the Treasury to study the threat of digital 
location obfuscation as it relates to national security and financial tech-
nology, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 5, 2023 
Mr. NUNN of Iowa (for himself and Mrs. BEATTY) introduced the following 
bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services 
A BILL 
To require the Secretary of the Treasury to study the threat 
of digital location obfuscation as it relates to national 
security and financial technology, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS. 
(a) SHORT TITLE.—This Act may be cited as the 
‘‘Stop Terrorism and Illicit Finance Location Exploitation 
Act of 2023’’ or the ‘‘STIFLE Act of 2023’’. 
(b) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following: 
(1) Financial sanctions are a primary national 
security tool for the United States. 
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(2) Financial technology has created both new 
beneficial financial innovations and emerging illicit 
finance risks, including the evasion of sanctions. 
(3) A financial technology platform must be 
able to determine the precise location of an active 
user of the platform to effectively implement loca-
tion-based access controls for compliance with— 
(A) sanctions programs administered by 
the Office of Foreign Assets Control; 
(B) obligations imposed by the Anti-Money 
Laundering Act of 2020, the Bank Secrecy Act, 
and regulations associated with such Acts; and 
(C) any other regulatory obligation. 
(4) Financial technology platforms generally 
use an Internet Protocol (in this Act referred to as 
‘‘IP’’) address as the primary or sole indicator of 
their users’ precise location. 
(5) IP addresses were first created in 1974 and 
standardized in 1983 as unique identification num-
bers attributed to devices on an interconnected com-
puter network and are the foundation of the modern 
internet. 
(6) IP addresses are assigned by Internet Serv-
ice Providers (in this Act referred to as ‘‘ISPs’’) and 
have become a less accurate determinant of precise 
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Laundering Act of 2020, the Bank Secrecy Act, and 
other statutory and regulatory requirements. 
SEC. 2. REPORT ON THE THREAT OF DIGITAL LOCATION 
OBFUSCATION TO NATIONAL SECURITY AND 
FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY COMPLIANCE OBLI-
GATIONS. 
(a) STUDY.—The Secretary of the Treasury, acting 
through the Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism 
and Financial Intelligence, and in consultation with tech-
nology experts, national security experts, and law enforce-
ment, shall conduct a study to assess the following: 
(1) The role that location obfuscation tech-
niques, including VPNs, proxy servers, GPS location 
manipulation applications, and device tampering 
plays in money laundering, sanctions evasion, and 
other forms of illicit finance. 
(2) The ease with which an illicit actor can ma-
nipulate and falsify location data relevant to compli-
ance with sanctions, the Anti-Money Laundering Act 
of 2020, the Bank Secrecy Act, and any other statu-
tory and regulatory obligation. 
(3) The degree to which a financial technology 
platform relies upon an IP address as the primary 
or sole indicator of the precise location of a user of 
the platform. 
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(4) The ability of a financial technology plat-
form to use multiple aggregated points of location 
data to indicate the precise location of a user of 
such platform if an illicit actor manipulates one or 
more of such data points. 
(b) REPORT.—Not later than 1 year after the date 
of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treas-
ury, acting through the Undersecretary of the Treasury 
for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and in consulta-
tion with technology experts, national security experts, 
and law enforcement, shall submit to the Congress a re-
port that contains the following: 
(1) Each finding and determination made in 
the study required under subsection (a). 
(2) Any insufficiency in or lack of available 
data inhibiting any finding and determination made 
in the study required under subsection (a). 
(3) A comprehensive analysis of any cost, ben-
efit, and potential risk associated with the mod-
ernization of precise location standards used by a fi-
nancial technology platform that relies on an IP ad-
dress as the primary or sole indicator of the precise 
location of a user of the platform. 
(4) A comprehensive analysis of the ways in 
which technology that combines enhanced data ana-
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lytics with multiple aggregated and authenticated 
sources of location data may be used to reduce eva-
sion of United States sanctions, requirements under 
the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, the Bank 
Secrecy Act, and any other statutory and regulatory 
obligation. 
(c) DEFINITIONS.—In this Act: 
(1) ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING ACT OF 2020.— 
The term ‘‘Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020’’ 
means Division F of the National Defense Author-
ization Act for Fiscal Year 2021. 
(2) BANK SECRECY ACT.—The term ‘‘Bank Se-
crecy Act’’ has the meaning given the term under 
section 6303 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 
2020 (31 U.S.C. 5301 note). 
Æ 
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