News
The House of Representatives will be performing a Full Committee markup of H.R. 7521, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act on March 7, 2024. This is a response to privacy concerns in national security with sensitive data, including health data, about Americans traveling abroad being collected and sold, particularly to foreign adversaries. President Biden issued an Executive Order last week discussing steps being taken to protect Americans’ sensitive data from exploitation by foreign adversaries, including genetic and biometric information.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, responsible for promoting innovation and new technologies in the US, is struggling with funding. The agency is unable to do foundational work because it is so underfunded. President Biden’s AI Executive Order rests heavily on the NIST to oversee AI models and the data privacy and security of such models. The Washington Post article describes the NIST building as absolute decay, with black mold forcing an evacuation, leaks, and struggling technology.
A bill introduced in Florida banning all minors under the age of 16, with or without parental consent, from addictive social media platforms was vetoed by Governor Ron DeSantis. Governor DeSantis previously seemed on board with the bill, having concerns about privacy for minors. Governor DeSantis is now believed to support a bill that would ban access for younger minors but allow access, with parental consent, for minors 14 and older.
Google and Reddit came to an agreement allowing Google to use Reddit posts to train its AI in addition to other services. Reddit is then allowed to use Google’s AI model for its own site improvement. The $60 million deal set a precedent for tech companies to obtain data for AI models in the future. As part of the deal, Google must comply with Reddit’s privacy policy and fully delete data once a user has deleted a post, not allowing Google to keep shadow data.
Germany is amending its Federal Data Protection Act. The amendment draft institutionalizes the German Data Protection Conference and aims to improve data protection law enforcement. The German press release states that there will additionally be legal certainty for consumer protective scoring, which has been developed with the Federal Ministry for the Environment and Consumer Protection.
(Compiled by Student Fellow Paulina Andrews)