During the Biden-Harris administration, Congress has made substantial strides in infrastructure, health care, climate change, and economic investments. However, this progress has not been mirrored in significant technology regulation, a legislative shortcoming that warrants national attention.
Despite numerous congressional hearings on foundational issues for creating safe, accountable, and competitive social media and artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystems—including data privacy, Section 230, antitrust laws, civil rights, content moderation, and child safety—these discussions have yet to result in legislation. The only notable piece of technology regulation to emerge from Congress in the past six years is a forced divestment and potential ban of TikTok due to national security risks. This app boasts more than 170 million U.S. users.
Technology without sufficient safeguards poses many threats to the rights and privacy of American citizens. The public is calling on Congress to protect them and their children from not only foreign adversaries but also tech companies that exploit their data, infringe upon their civil rights, and expose children to online risks. The lack of action by Washington on data privacy has resulted in a regulatory patchwork where most Americans do not have meaningful privacy protections. Consequently, the European Union and the state of California are setting global data privacy standards instead of the U.S. government.
In his bipartisan tech unity agenda, President Joe Biden highlighted the harms caused by Big Tech such as excessive data collection about Americans online, concentration of tech power in a few companies, and online abuse faced by millions of children. This agenda advocated for a federal privacy law, antitrust reforms, and kids’ online safety measures.
Data collection powers almost every modern commercial enterprise. In a data-centric society like ours today, federal data privacy legislation is an essential starting point for all effective tech regulation. Currently lacking federal protections against most exploitative uses of their data makes Americans among the most vulnerable globally to abusive data collection.
The recent release of a discussion draft of the bipartisan and bicameral American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) by House Energy and Commerce Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-WA) provides a legitimate opportunity to pass meaningful legislation that establishes a federal privacy law.
Congress is also focusing its efforts on developing new legislation to regulate artificial intelligence. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has declared AI a key priority for the Senate and has promised a forthcoming AI framework. However, future AI regulation will be challenging to accomplish without privacy legislation since data is one of the critical engines that underpins the development of AI models.
Legislation protecting Americans’ privacy and safety would only be a starting point for the substantive, comprehensive technology regulation that is needed. Federal agencies need not wait on Congress to utilize their existing statutory authorities to address AI risk now, beyond the tasks in the 2023 AI executive order.
In conclusion, it is rare that Congress has the opportunity to engage in serious bipartisan legislation this far into a legislative session. Congress should seize this opportunity to pass meaningful bipartisan legislation on data privacy and children’s safety. Failure to do so would be a significant political and policy mistake. This moment poses a very real opportunity for Congress to pass serious, comprehensive technology legislation this year.
