President Obama has used the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s State of the Union address to preview a slew of tech policies he wants to tackle in the coming year. The president has set forth several legislative goals that could reset the way consumers use and interact with the internet. Here are some of the most important tech-themed policy issues Obama is expected to address in his speech Monday night:
Preventing The Next Sony Attack
Obama made several announcements this month, many of which focused on boosting the country’s cybersecurity efforts.
Large-scale retail breaches, the North Korea-launched Sony attack and the terrorist attack at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris have all spurned security discussions around how to best prevent these attacks.
Injecting the job market with fresh-from-college cybersecurity experts is a part of that plan. Vice President Joe Biden announced the Administration’s is granting $25 million to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to bolster their cybersecurity degree programs.
The president may also touch on tech companies sharing access to their data troves. A meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron last week centered around increasing data sharing from US tech companies to better predict terror threats.
Anti-hacking legislation could also be a hot topic. Obama previously announced plans to revise anti-hacking bill the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which aims to make it easier for hackers to be charged and convicted. The law is highly criticized by the tech industry for being too broad and constituting everyday internet habits such as lying about your age as hacking, and thus a federal crime. The law was used against Aaron Swartz, an internet activist who committed suicide after the Justice Department charged him with criminal hacking for downloading documents from a research database. He faced up to 50 years in prison for 13 felonies permitted by the law.
Obama’s revisions might not make the law any better with vague language that could criminalize password sharing.
Putting Privacy First
While the Sony hack in December and U.S. military social media hacks this month have renewed stalled efforts to reinforce not only the country’s cyberattack response, Obama is looking to empower consumers to take charge of their private data.
Cyberattacks are becoming everyday hazards of internet connectivity. One in seven people having their information leaked in a breach and another 25 percent who have had their identity stolen. More than 61 million customer records were stolen from retailers in 2014 because of cyberattacks, according to an IBM study.
Obama proposed last week a federal law that would mandate companies notify customers if their information is exposed or stolen within 30 days. Most states already have similar laws with varying standards, but the lack of cohesion on when to report a breach exacerbates the damage caused by breaches from big box retailers such as Target and Home Depot.
In that same proposal, Obama included plans to pressure banks and other financial institutions to give customers continued free access to their credit scores so they can better manage their credit.
Ending The Net Neutrality Debate
Arguably the biggest tech policy debate in 2014, net neutrality is set to climax in just over a month when federal regulators vote on how to best regulate internet access under existing legislation. The Federal Communications Commission will vote Feb. 26 on whether the internet and broadband providers should be regulated as a utility.
Obama came out in strong support for net neutrality in November, calling for an outright ban on internet service providers (ISPs) slowing down consumers internet speeds with throttling. The president has been relatively mum on the issue since then, but a new bill that would let the FCC limit ISPs throttled customers’ data access.
Congress however is looking to subvert the FCC’s authority with a new bill that would let the FCC limit ISPs throttled customers’ data access. If passed, the bill would also give the FCC clear legal framework from which to regulate ISPs instead of re-interpreting current laws.
Internet Access For Everyone
One of Obama’s biggest proposals is the removal of nearly 20 state laws than ban cities and towns from building their own broadband internet networks.
A White House report released last week called for such state laws — many of which were penned by special interest groups and broadband companies’ lobbyists to restrict competition — to be lifted in favor of providing faster access than what big broadband companies offer.