Technology

House still searching for a privacy deal


With help from John Hendel and Cristiano Lima

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— The state of privacy in the House: A discussion draft for new federal rules is set to emerge out of a Democratic-led subcommittee as early as next week — but that doesn’t mean bipartisan talks are dead, leaders in the chamber say.

— Ready to roll on robocalls? Supporters of the big robocall bill seem to have addressed the concerns from Sen. Rand Paul that were holding up final approval. But don’t stop screening your calls yet: Commerce Chairman Roger Wicker says the Senate plans to move the bill as part of a legislative package that’s still in flux.

— EU’s extremely new justice commish comes to town: Didier Reynders has been in office less than two weeks, but he’s already trying to tackle online extremism — including, he told MT, laying the groundwork for Silicon Valley tête-à-têtes.

HELLO AND WELCOME TO MORNING TECH! I’m your guest host, Nancy Scola, who’s gearing up for her annual holiday viewing of Jim Henson’s 1977 classic “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas.” (If the words “ain’t no hole in the washtub” don’t mean anything to you, remedy that quick — just pretend you don’t notice the sticks that make Emmet and crew move around. It was the ’70s, people.)

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HOUSE’S PRIVACY TALKS IN FLUX — The House has now officially gone the way of the Senate in its efforts to craft national data privacy legislation — with committee leaders still unable to strike a final deal on key issues and instead opting to release a discussion draft as bipartisan talks continue.

— Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), whose House Energy and Commerce consumer protection subcommittee is spearheading those talks in the chamber, said Wednesday she will release a draft bill as early as next week that will not address hotly contested issues over whether a national standard should override state laws or enable consumers to sue companies over privacy violations. A spokesman for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said the bill is the result of bipartisan discussions.

— But unlike in the Senate, House leaders indicated they have no plans to put out dueling privacy proposals along party lines at this stage. “Right now we’re focused on trying to see if we can find common ground with Chairwoman Schakowsky” and House E&C Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), said Rep. Greg Walden (Ore.), the top Republican on the committee. Schakowsky told reporters she has received no indication from panel Republicans that they will put out their own standalone proposal. “I think that’s because from the beginning we’ve really tried to keep them in the loop and to work with them,” she said.

— And will the two sides ever agree on a private right of action? McMorris Rodgers told Cristiano she’s interested in hearing more about a possible compromise between the two parties on a narrow right to sue — something Wicker (R-Miss.) has said he’s willing to entertain. But she added she has not been a part of any discussions on such a deal.

ROBOCALL LAW BY CHRISTMAS? — Senate GOP Whip John Thune (S.D.) told reporters Wednesday that Paul might not hold up the bicameral robocall deal that cleared the House in an overwhelming vote last week. The Kentucky Republican, MT readers will recall, told John on Monday that he worries the robocall-fighting measure, known as the TRACED Act, would make life harder for debt collectors.

— But Thune said Wednesday: “I think we’ve worked through the issues with Senator Paul, so I’m hoping he’ll not object and that we can perhaps even hotline it.” Paul’s spokespeople didn’t comment.

— Not so fast, though: Wicker revealed to John on Wednesday that the Senate and House had previously reached “a three-bill agreement” to simultaneously advance the new robocall deal along with the chambers’ individual measures to improve broadband mapping accuracy and help secure the telecom supply chain from alleged national security threats like Huawei. Although both chambers have cleared these mapping and supply bills from committee, the full House has not approved its Broadband DATA Act, H.R. 4229 (116), or the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, H.R. 4998 (116).

“The clock’s ticking, and we thought we had a three-bill agreement,” Wicker told John. “We’d be happy to move the package if we could get our friends in the House to move the other two legs.”

— A House Energy and Commerce spokesman said staff are “working hard to get the broadband mapping and supply chain bills on the floor as soon as next week” and coordinating with the Senate. But the spokesman added that it’s “critical” to get the robocall-fighting legislation to President Donald Trump’s desk “immediately.” House telecom subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) affirmed bipartisan interest in advancing all three measures: “They’re all bills we’re gonna move.”

EU’S NEW JUSTICE COMMISH TALKS ONLINE EXTREMISM, 5G — Reynders sat down with reporters at a roundtable Wednesday afternoon, fresh off a get-to-know-you session with U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr. One topic that came up during their discussion? The internet, the new justice commissioner said, and in particular combating its use by violent extremists.

(For those of you following along, Reynders replaced Věra Jourová when Ursula von der Leyen became European Commission president on Dec. 1. Jourová moved up to a commission VP spot.)

— “It’s very important to be able to have more and more capacity to detect hate speech, to detect a lot of websites, to detect a lot of different activities on social networks,” said Reynders, pointing to recent real-world attacks in which perpetrators were found to be active online.

— One such attack, the March mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, led to a non-binding industry-government agreement. But Reynders said one question he’s begun exploring: “Is that enough? Is it enough to ask to have a real commitment from different companies to work with us and with the law enforcement authorities? Or is it needed to take some regulations and to force, sometimes, access to different data, and in what kind of conditions?”

— Reynders said he’s eager to broach the topic with U.S. tech companies, but, well, he’s been in the office less than two weeks and has focused first on talking to EU and U.S. officials. Asked if he had a trip planned to Silicon Valley, he responded, “No, [but] it should be very fast. I don’t want to wait.”

— Also on the table during the EU-U.S. chat? 5G, with Reynders saying he told Barr that EU members are working through their own process of figuring out whether Chinese companies — read, Huawei — pose a risk to their telecom infrastructure. The U.S. has leaned on allies to shut out Huawei from their 5G buildouts. So was Barr satisfied with his response? “He seemed to be,” Reynders said with a laugh. “We had a very good lunch after.”

TODAY: FCC VOTES ON AUTO AIRWAVES, SUICIDE HOTLINE — All five commissioners will vote today at their December meeting on Chairman Ajit Pai’s proposal to carve up 75 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band of airwaves to allow for Wi-Fi use as well as new automotive safety technology known as Cellular Vehicle to Everything. The band had been reserved for a different car-crash avoidance technology known as dedicated short-range communications, which never took off as intended. Although a wide range of groups have cheered the move and little disagreement is expected among commissioners, the Department of Transportation has remained leery and called for the full 75 MHz to be reserved for transportation safety.

— Commissioners will also vote on Pai’s plan to create a 9-8-8 shortcode for a national suicide prevention hotline. The vote comes a day after the Senate Commerce Committee unanimously approved the bipartisan National Suicide Hotline Designation Act, S. 2661, which codifies the move. “A three-digit number will help make it as quick and easy as possible for Americans in crisis to get the help and support they need,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who sponsored the measure with Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.).

5G TEMPEST? — Some lawmakers are still sounding the alarm about 5G airwave interference limits potentially disrupting weather forecasting technology, despite a seeming late-summer compromise between Commerce Department and FCC officials. House Science Committee leaders are requesting a GAO study on whether the issue was “adequately resolved” and are “deeply concerned” about potential “degradation” to weather forecasts. Senate Commerce ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said last week she is “still very concerned,” too.

— Pai and the wireless industry have contended that the recent compromise poses no threat to forecasting. Pai even poked fun at the charges during his Federal Communications Bar Association chairman’s dinner speech Tuesday night.

Matthew Cornelius, senior technology and cybersecurity adviser in the Office of Management and Budget, has joined the Alliance for Digital Innovation as executive director. … The Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, tech giants’ joint counterterrorism initiative, has officially attained nonprofit status and is now seeking an executive director.

Let a thousand Twitters bloom: CEO Jack Dorsey announced a new project to build a decentralized social-media standard. The theory? As The Verge notes, such a standard would lead to smaller, more specialized social networks that would be more governable than sweeping global ones like, you know, Twitter.

Looking recognition tech right in the eye: Vox has a rundown on the ways that facial recognition technologies are being used today, and how experts say those uses’ harms could be mitigated.

The coiner of ‘surveillance capitalism’: The AP profiles Shoshana Zuboff, the Harvard professor shaping the debate around what it means for Silicon Valley to make its money from data.

Counting on Google: In a new blog post, the company says it and its YouTube subsidiary are taking steps to protect the 2020 U.S. census, including banning ads and videos that mislead people on participating in the decennial tally.

‘We’re listening’: It’s not just a slogan floated on “Succession” — Bloomberg Businessweek reports on the humans tasked with transcribing what we’re telling our smart speakers.

Tips, comments, suggestions? Send them along via email to our team: Bob King (bking@politico.com, @bkingdc), Mike Farrell (mfarrell@politico.com, @mikebfarrell), Nancy Scola (nscola@politico.com, @nancyscola), Steven Overly (soverly@politico.com, @stevenoverly), John Hendel (jhendel@politico.com, @JohnHendel), Cristiano Lima (clima@politico.com, @viaCristiano) and Alexandra S. Levine (alevine@politico.com, @Ali_Lev).

TTYL.





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