Several new tech regulation laws as public sentiment shifts

The House on Monday passed easily – 386 to 31 – a pair of cybersecurity measures.  One requires DDHS to review its incident response plans and submit a report outlining the specific roles of federal agencies.   More should come tomorrow as they review an already Senate-approved one, dubbed the State and Local Government Cybersecurity Act, allowing the federal government to conduct cybersecurity exercises with state and local entities and provide them access to technical tools and other assistance. 

It would also let federal officials coordinate with state, local, tribal and territorial entities to establish vulnerability disclosure programs, information sharing efforts, and improvements to election security infrastructure.   They will also review the Cybersecurity Grants for Schools Act of 2022, which would allocate federal grants to state governments to provide a more robust cybersecurity curriculum to students. 

They’re happening at the local level, too – Maryland signed three into law last week, funding new tech purchases and staff positions and solidifying its cyber policy structure.   

Meanwhile, public sentiment on tech regulation has changed, per Pew Research.     Overall, 44% of Americans think major technology companies should be regulated more than now, down from 56% in April 2021. Conversely, the share of Americans who say they want less government regulation of major technology companies has roughly doubled, from about one in ten (9%) in previous years to one in five now.    A plurality of Americans does believe in greater regulation overall. 

This, of course, as Senator Michael Bennet introduced the Digital Platform Commission Act, legislation to establish a new five-person commission responsible for protecting consumers in the age of Big Tech. According to the bill viewed exclusively by The Washington Post, the agency would have the power to interrogate the algorithms powering major tech platforms and set new rules to ensure the biggest companies are transparent about how they handle complex decisions around content moderation on their platforms.

Reuters is reporting on the shift in sentiment around facial recognition – it’s making a comeback.    Attributed to the rise in crime and increased lobbying from developers, Virginia is eliminating its ban in July, a year after approving it. California and the city of New Orleans are considering it next month.     From 2019 through 2021, around two dozen US state or local governments passed bans.   New research from NIST shows significant progress in accuracy, and Homeland Security published a report last month finding little variation in accuracy across skin tone and gender.  

When facts change, so should actions.     There’s a difference between sentiment, aka surveys, and research.      The points around facial recognition are changing, and so the approach to the technology should be measured.  Public sentiment on regulation is also changing… and yet I’m left noting it’s still a negative factor for services companies.

The regulation is coming – the question will be how much, not if it happens at all.      A shift in sentiment might mean less regulation, but it doesn’t mean zero.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t note how a privacy law, in general, would frame both conversations.