Technology is a sector of industry that has bled its way into all the other sectors of industry. The way technology is handled from a legal viewpoint is an issue of some contention, since the government has classically lagged well behind the tech savvy companies who are driving development forward as fast as they can. As government policy tries to catch up to some of the issues technology has created, bills are getting proposed with potentially enormous consequences for people in all different areas of the tech sector. So Let’s take a look at six bills that look set to make waves.
Californian Uber And Lyft Employee Regulations
California has voted to pass a bill that concerns rideshare apps, like Uber and Lyft, who have business models reliant on a considering their drivers as independent contractors. “The freelancer sector grows and grows daily, as communications, payment systems and other tech become more and more efficient. Uber and Lyft are big employers who want their employees to feel flexible, not bound to a concrete employment contract”, says James O’Hara, legal advisor at 1Day2Write and WriteMyx. There could be a knock-on effect from this bill, if it signals a changing attitude towards the newly emerging freelancer market.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
This was a big one, again from California. In an attempt to redress some of the real issues relating to data privacy for the individual, the CCPA was designed to dictate that the average consumer has the right to at any point demand for the retrieval and destruction or viewing of any data that a company has collected about them. This has big implications for all sorts of companies, particularly those whose marketing is entirely reliant on data. It mainly effects how companies using that sort of technology treat their consumers.
Ending Support For Internet Censorship Act
Senator Josh Hawley is attempting to push this bill through, a bill which is aiming to get political bias removed from the internet by addressing perceived systems for political divide employed by all sorts of companies and individuals operating online. This is a controversial bill that would have a huge impact if it were passed.
Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act
Facial recognition is the sort of technological advancement that does have even less-informed people concerned. The Commercial Facial Recognition Privacy Act attempts to address some of these concerns. “There’s something so invasive about facial recognition technology that it’s important that it gets discussed. This bill is looking to severely restrict commercial use of facial recognition”, says Elmer Strong, paralegal at Australia2Write and NextCoursework. Use of facial recognition software isn’t as widespread as devices like the iPhone might suggest, but an important bill nonetheless, with a lot of restricting force for the future of commercial technology.
SMART Act
The SMART Act, also known as the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act, is a bill that is attempting to enforce social media companies to design their applications in such a way that it reduces the chance of addiction. The details relate to limiting autoplay on videos, stopping limitless scrolling and trying to rid apps of incentives for further usage of the sites. This is highly controversial since it even goes as far as to require that companies restrict usage to 30 minutes per-day, something which is extremely demanding and, if passed, would cause huge shifts.
CAMRA Act
The Children and Media Research Advancement Act or CAMRA Act, is set in place to try and promote ways to use data-driven techniques for helping to understand how to protect children in their usage of the internet and social media in particular. It proposes techniques for assessing and addressing the current issues using the data that can be retrieved from internet usage.
Conclusion
As someone working in any sort of role relating to technology, it is really important that you stay on top of the events happening around you, so that you are able to keep informed in such a way as to be useful for your own career and the companies that you work for. These bills are just a few examples of things worth paying attention to.
Joel Syder is a legal counselor and technology writer at Origin Writings and Phd Kingdom. He enjoys guiding people through the dense and complex world of the law well as creating his own articles about things that inspire him for Academic Brits.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash