The European Union’s Normal Knowledge Safety Regulation, enacted in 2018, supplies far-from-perfect knowledge privateness safety, but it surely stands in stark distinction to the legislative dearth in the US, the place there aren’t any complete federal knowledge privateness legal guidelines on the books. In his second State of the Union deal with, although, US President Joe Biden devoted extra consideration than ever to the necessity for such a measure.
With political management of the US Congress now cut up, Biden asserted {that a} knowledge privateness legislation might garner bipartisan assist. It is an concept that has been gaining traction lately, and the point out of information privateness points in Tuesday’s State of the Union units a precedent that the subject ought to be of actual concern to US presidents and the general public.
“We should lastly maintain social media corporations accountable for experimenting they’re doing [on] kids for revenue,” Biden stated throughout his speech, garnering a standing ovation from members of each events. “It’s time to move bipartisan laws to cease Huge Tech from gathering private knowledge on our children and youngsters on-line. Ban focused promoting to kids and impose stricter limits on the non-public knowledge that corporations accumulate on all of us.”
Earlier US presidents not often talked about knowledge privateness within the State of the Union. Former president Donald Trump by no means talked about the subject in any of his annual addresses. Former president Barack Obama talked about the subject solely as soon as throughout the 2014 State of the Union, following revelations in regards to the beforehand undisclosed scale and scope of the Nationwide Safety Company’s bulk surveillance packages. He stated then: “Working with this Congress, I’ll reform our surveillance packages—as a result of the very important work of our intelligence neighborhood relies on public confidence, right here and overseas, that the privateness of unusual individuals will not be being violated.”
In his first State of the Union, in 2022, Biden talked about knowledge privateness because it pertains to defending kids. “It’s time to strengthen privateness protections, ban focused promoting to kids, demand tech corporations cease gathering private knowledge on our kids,” he stated on the time.
Biden’s remarks this yr went additional, signaling a shift in mainstream understanding in regards to the urgency of bettering knowledge privateness safety within the US. Whether or not the step will result in productive motion in 2023, although, is much less clear. In his remarks, Biden known as for cooperation amongst lawmakers—a dynamic missing in each chambers on Capitol Hill. “To my Republican buddies, if we might work collectively within the final Congress, there isn’t any motive we will’t work collectively and discover consensus on necessary issues on this Congress as properly,” he stated.
All elements of the US political spectrum would probably agree that the earlier Congress was not precisely a shining instance of a high-functioning, collaborative legislative department. By together with a point out of information privateness within the State of the Union, Biden is including further stress on his administration and lawmakers to ship on a problem that impacts everybody.