On “The Impact”:
There are multiple bills aimed at regulating the collection and sale of personal data and the use of facial recognition technology by the private sector or the government. With competing proposals in the House and Senate, it’s clear that legislative leaders have different views on what would be required to protect personal privacy and what would constitute regulatory overreach.
In part one of two episodes focused on consumer privacy bills we spoke with leaders from the House Innovation, Technology & Economic Development Committee.
“We are really twenty years late because of the failure of the federal government to act,” said Ranking Republican committee member, Norma Smith, (R – Clinton). “I still have great concerns about this bill. And I think that the fact that the AG has expressed concerns, that all of the consumer groups have expressed concern ought to heighten all of our concern. This issue is something that we will live with for decades if we get this wrong. It’s vital that we get this right.”
“It’s a legitimate argument to say we should continue to work on these issues. We will. I think that privacy issues aren’t going away. Data use is not going away. The Big Data economy is not going away. And it creates a lot of benefits in our communities and our society. But we need to make sure that we’re not simply trying to get a good bill, instead of a perfect bill, we’re not fighting that out when in reality we have a bill that doesn’t work. So, we should really make sure that we’re looking at the details and trying to do the best we can on this first shot,” said Committee Chair Zack Hudgins, (D – Tukwila).
