With help from Steven Overly, John Hendel and Eric Geller
Editor’s Note: This edition of Morning Tech is published weekdays at 10 a.m. POLITICO Pro Technology subscribers hold exclusive early access to the newsletter each morning at 6 a.m. Learn more about POLITICO Pro’s comprehensive policy intelligence coverage, policy tools and services, at politicopro.com.
Story Continued Below
— Tech action in Washington state: With Congress moving notoriously slowly on tech issues, states are increasingly taking matters into their own hands — and Washington state is unveiling a pair of bills on privacy and facial recognition.
— Speaking of the states: The D.C.-based trade group representing Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Slack, IBM and other software firms is expanding into state capitols.
— 5G Action Now: Former lawmaker Mike Rogers, a Republican from Michigan, is chairing a new advocacy organization aimed at drumming up support for American leadership on 5G.
AAAAAND WE’RE BACK. IT’S MONDAY; WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! I’m your host, Alexandra Levine. The springlike weather continues this week, in case you want to call out sick.
Got a news tip? Write Alex at alevine@politico.com or @Ali_Lev. An event for our calendar? Send details to techcalendar@politicopro.com. Anything else? Full team info below. And don’t forget: add @MorningTech and @PoliticoPro on Twitter.
WASHINGTON STATE MOVES ON PRIVACY, FACIAL RECOGNITION — A bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers in Washington state is set to unveil legislation this afternoon on consumer data privacy and facial recognition technology. On the heels of California’s landmark privacy law, which took effect Jan. 1, the pair of bills debuting in Olympia is the latest example of states pushing ahead where federal efforts have stalled.
— “The legislature notes that our federal authorities have not developed or adopted into law regulatory or legislative solutions that give consumers control over their privacy,” says the draft text of the Washington privacy act. “In contrast, the European Union's general data privacy regulation has continued to influence data privacy policies and practices of those businesses competing in global markets.” (Click here for POLITICO’s primer on the EU’s rule.)
— The Washington privacy act would give consumers “the right to access, correction, and deletion of personal data, as well as the right to opt out of the collection and use of personal data for certain purposes.” It would also impose “affirmative obligations upon companies to safeguard personal data and provide clear, understandable, and transparent information to consumers about how their personal data are used,” empowering the state attorney general to evaluate those efforts and impose penalties as needed. The proposal also sets boundaries for commercial use of facial recognition technology.
— The separate facial recognition legislation would “establish safeguards that will allow state and local government agencies to use facial recognition services in a manner that benefits society while prohibiting uses that threaten our democratic freedoms and put our civil liberties at risk.” The bill would (among other things) require agencies to publish an “accountability report” outlining the reasons for using the technology and describing how long it would be used; disclose how the data would be retained and used; and spell out whether human review would be part of the ultimate decision-making process.
— Next up: The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on facial recognition on Wednesday. Meanwhile, expect more pushback from consumer and privacy groups that have raised civil liberties concerns and sounded the alarm about biases in the AI underlying facial recognition technology.
“We don't have time for Congress to drag their feet on this,” Evan Greer, deputy director of Fight for the Future, told MT. “In 2020 we'll be redoubling our grassroots efforts to pressure local, state, and federal lawmakers to enact outright bans on the use of facial recognition for surveillance purposes ... [continuing] to build off our success keeping facial recognition out of U.S. music festivals, and launch similar campaigns to stop this invasive technology from creeping into airports, schools and universities."
STATE OF LOBBYING — States’ increasing role in shaping national tech policy is having an impact on one major trade association: BSA | The Software Alliance is expanding into state capitols.
— The Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, which represents firms like Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Slack and IBM, has tapped Tom Foulkes to serve as senior director of state advocacy, a role that will see him lobby state governments on issues like privacy, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. He joins from the Entertainment Software Association, where he has lobbied for the video game industry since 2011 as vice president of state government affairs.
— “As states move forward on issues that impact software, it’s important for BSA to engage with state policymakers to help craft smart, effective long-term solutions that provide a high standard of protection for consumer rights,” Victoria Espinel, the association’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
EX-REP. MIKE ROGERS RAMPS UP 5G ADVOCACY — Rogers, the Michigan Republican who chaired the House Intelligence Committee, is chairing a new 501(c)4 advocacy organization called 5G Action Now, aimed at beating the drum for U.S. leadership in rolling out 5G wireless technology.
— “If we cede victory in this race to Beijing, no one wins,” Rogers said in a statement today. One key position for Rogers’ effort, aimed at Congress and the broader public: backing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in his ambition to auction off 5G-friendly airwaves in the C-band, starting by the end of the year. The group is not yet disclosing funding.
EYES ON AUTO AIRWAVES — Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) led a bipartisan quartet of lawmakers thanking Pai for his December vote to cut up 5.9 GHz auto safety airwaves to allow for Wi-Fi and new accident prevention technology. “This proposal shows that the Commission remains dedicated to transportation safety while supporting the growing demand for unlicensed services,” the lawmakers said.
— But the Department of Transportation has maintained its objections, seeking to preserve the full 75 MHz of the band for auto safety and circulating its harsh technical breakdown of the December FCC item (suggesting the plan could mean “full stoppage” of vehicle-to-everything operations).
— And at least one state DOT agrees: “As an operator that is leveraging these [connected vehicle] technologies for safety benefits, the uncertainty of the dedication of airwaves to transportation safety is concerning,” Colorado’s department of transportation wrote to the FCC this month, worried that the changes contemplated could “jeopardize” investments already made in the state.
— Although FCC commissioners and many others are aligned in seeking to open the airwaves as Pai is doing, these concerns indicate that the issue is hardly settled as the FCC prepares to collect comments on its proposal.
ELECTION INTERFERENCE THREATS EVOLVE — The Russian hackers who breached the Democratic National Committee in 2016 are getting creative to evade detection by the CIA and the NSA, according to a New York Times story published on Friday.
— The Moscow-linked unit Fancy Bear, also known as APT28, “has shifted some of its work to servers based in the United States” so that U.S. spy agencies without a domestic surveillance mandate cannot track them, the Times reported. Cozy Bear, aka APT29, seems to be hibernating, experts told the NYT. Among the other revelations in the story: The intelligence community is confident that Russia breached three voter registration vendors but still “cannot say how far the hackers got or whether any data was stolen or corrupted.”
— Election security challenges have evolved since 2016, with ransomware attacks on local governments causing special alarm because of the vulnerabilities they reveal in understaffed state, county and city offices. But the Department of Homeland Security is concerned that those ransomware infections may not be the work of simple criminals: DHS is “investigating whether Russian intelligence was involved in any of the attacks,” including whether Kremlin agents used criminals “as decoys to test the defenses of states and cities that might make ideal targets closer to the election.”
David Drummond, chief legal officer of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is stepping down at the end of the month “amid an investigation into his relationships with women who worked at the company,” per NYT. … Michael O’Leary, former senior vice president for global policy and public affairs at 21st Century Fox, is joining the Entertainment Software Association, the trade group representing the U.S. video game industry, to lead its government affairs team and political strategy.
Reality check: “If any national policymakers entertained the idea that most of the tech industry lives in constant dread of D.C. — with voters complaining about privacy and CEOs forced to testify before Congress — they would have gotten a wake-up call at this year’s CES,” Nancy and Cristiano report.
Analysis: POLITICO Europe’s chief technology correspondent Mark Scott writes from Brussels that Facebook’s decision to give users more control over political ads on the platform is a mistake.
Fresh Facebook fine: Italian authorities fined the social giant €5 million for falsely advertising that its service was free and misleading users over how the company uses their data, POLITICO reports.
Techlash boils over to college campuses: “Facebook, Google and other major tech firms were every student’s dream workplaces. Until they weren’t,” via NYT.
Google moves into medical records: “In just a few years, the company has achieved the ability to view or analyze tens of millions of patient health records in at least three-quarters of U.S. states,” WSJ reports.
Senate’s antitrust probe: The Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee will hold a hearing on March 10 examining whether and how leading tech platforms promote their own offerings over those of competitors, Bloomberg Law reports.
2020 chatter: Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg on Friday unveiled an election security agenda aimed at protecting the country’s elections from foreign influence.
About that ‘data dividend’: The fate of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to compensate Californians for personal data that companies collect about them remains uncertain, POLITICO reports.
Latest IP battle: “Philips is accusing two of the highest profile players in the wearables market, Fitbit and Garmin, of stealing its [proprietary] technology,” Gizmodo reports, adding that it is “asking for Fitbit and Garmin, along with three other companies, to pay tariffs or be subjected to an import ban.”
Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King (bking@politico.com, @bkingdc), Mike Farrell (mfarrell@politico.com, @mikebfarrell), Nancy Scola (nscola@politico.com, @nancyscola), Steven Overly (soverly@politico.com, @stevenoverly), John Hendel (jhendel@politico.com, @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima (clima@politico.com, @viaCristiano), Alexandra S. Levine (alevine@politico.com, @Ali_Lev), and Leah Nylen (lnylen@politico.com, @leah_nylen).
TTYL.
2020-01-13 15:00:00Z
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/morning-tech/2020/01/13/where-congress-stalls-on-tech-states-are-stepping-up-784318
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Where Congress stalls on tech, states are stepping up - Politico"
Post a Comment