Online privacy

Growing societal and parental concerns about the negative impacts of digital spaces are driving a new wave of youth online safety initiatives.

Selling data is becoming the new selling plasma. Many young people are more willing than their parents to share personal data, giving companies deeper insight into their lives. Generation Lab, a youth polling company, is launching a new product, 

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal(D-CT) were joined by U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in introducing the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). In July 2024, the Senate approved KOSA – the first major reform to the tech industry since 1998 – in an overwhelming 91-3 bipartisan vote. This bill sets out requirements to protect minors from online harms.

Attorney General Ken Paxton (R-TX) secured a $1.375 billion settlement in principle with Google, delivering a historic win for Texans’ data privacy and security rights and marking the highest recovery nationwide against Google for any attorney general’s enforcement of state privacy laws.

The Digital Equity Act, an element of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, provides $2.75 billion for states’ digital equity efforts under three programs. States are currently waiting on this funding to ensure that all people and communities have the skills, technology, and capacity they need to fully participate in digital life. Older adults—aged 65+—face numerous barriers to robust digital access, adoption, and use. This funding, if dispersed, could help close the digital divide for older adults and ensure digital agency for all.

Sens Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Ed Markey (D-MA) called on the Federal Trade Commission to take action to protect Americans’ neural data from potential exploitation or sale, as brain-computer interface technologies rapidly advance. “These systems enable direct communication between an individual’s brain and external devices, such as computers or smartphones, by detecting and translating neural activity into commands,” the Senators wrote in a letter to FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson. “Unlike other personal data, neural data—captured directly from the human brain—can reveal m

A concerning development from the Trump administration has privacy advocates sounding alarm bells nationwide: a plan to consolidate data from dozens of government agencies into what would amount to a comprehensive “master file” on all American citizens.

AT&T seeks review of a Federal Communications Commission forfeiture order. In an internal proceeding, the Commission found that AT&T violated section 222 of the Telecommunications Act by mishandling customer data and fined the company $57 million. AT&T’s petition argues, among other things, that the in-house adjudication violated the Constitution by denying it an Article III decisionmaker and a jury trial. Guided by SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109 (2024), we agree with AT&T.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-TX) is demanding answers from the artificial intelligence nonprofit, Future of Privacy Forum, over its having used federal grant money to advocate for states to adopt AI laws. Sen Cruz raises concerns about the group’s advocacy for AI regulations aligned with the Biden administration’s political agenda, such as policing speech and embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion principles in AI code. He is also reviewing FPF’s federal grants amid concerns that the organization attempted to obscure its support for Biden’s AI regulatory agenda.

Dizzied by an accumulated pileup of busted norms, you might have missed a presidential executive order issued on March 20. It’s called, “Stopping Waste, Fraud, and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos.” It basically gives the federal government the authority to consolidate all the unclassified materials from different government databases.