Hillicon Valley — Biden’s child privacy call gets backers
Today is Tuesday. Welcome to Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Subscribe here.
On the back of President Biden’s call for child privacy protections during his state of the union address, a coalition of 60 groups called on Congress to get a move on with legislation. A new bipartisan bill aimed at curbing seizures of journalist data was also introduced today.
Send tips and feedback to The Hill’s tech team, Rebecca Klar (rklar@digital-stage.thehill.com) and Chris Mills Rodrigo (cmillsrodrigo@digital-stage.thehill.com), and cyber reporter Ines Kagubare (ikagubare@digital-stage.thehill.com).
Let’s get to it.
Pressure for child privacy
Tech and children’s health advocacy groups on Tuesday sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to pass legislation providing protections for kids and teens online.
The letter follows President Biden’s call for social companies to be held accountable for their impact on kids’ safety during his first State of the Union address earlier this month and builds on bipartisan momentum in Congress to add additional regulations.
“The current unregulated business model for digital media is fundamentally at odds with children’s wellbeing. Digital platforms are designed to maximize revenue, and design choices that increase engagement and facilitate data collection, all of which put children at risk,” the advocates wrote, according to a copy of the letter shared with The Hill.
The letter is signed by 60 advocacy organizations, including Fairplay, the Center for Digital Democracy, Accountable Tech and the American Academy of Pediatrics. It was addressed to the top lawmakers of both parties in the House and Senate.
Gag order bill introduced
Government agencies would no longer be able to indefinitely conceal their secret seizure of email records under legislation introduced Tuesday that takes aim at gag orders.
The Government Surveillance Transparency Act, sponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers, puts limitations on gag orders that seek to block tech companies from altering users whose data has been seized. It targets a practice brought into the spotlight after journalists from CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post all had their records seized by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The bill requires law enforcement agencies to notify surveillance subjects that their email, location and web browsing data has been seized, aligning with current practices for phone records and bank data.
While the legislation allows the government to continue getting secret warrants to obtain such data, it also places a six-month limit on gag orders that prevent companies from notifying their users of the seizure.
“When the government obtains someone’s emails or other digital information, users have a right to know,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a release.
GOOGLE OBSTRUCTING?
Google trained employees to “camouflage” business documents to shield them from discovery, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a brief filed Monday.
The company’s “Communicate with Care” training allegedly told employees to routinely copy lawyers on emails and mark documents as privileged, making it difficult for prosecutors to determine what can be withheld under attorney-client privilege.
“Google has explicitly and repeatedly instructed its employees to shield important business communications from discovery by using false requests for legal advice,” DOJ attorneys wrote, asking U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta to sanction Google and compel the disclosure of more documents.
They argued the training was a “misuse” of attorney-client privilege and constituted misconduct.
The alleged misconduct “continued unabated after the company was on notice” of the DOJ’s antitrust investigation into Google over dominance in the search market, they said.
OKTA PROBES DIGITAL BREACH
Okta, a software company based in San Francisco, said it is investigating a possible digital breach after hackers posted screenshots of internal information, according to Reuters.
The software company said the breach could be related to an incident in January that was contained. Okta said it prevented the hackers from compromising the account of a third-party customer support engineer.
“We believe the screenshots shared online are connected to this January event,” said Chris Hollis, a senior manager at Okta. “Based on our investigation to date, there is no evidence of ongoing malicious activity beyond the activity detected in January.”
SEATTLE PRIDE DROPS AMAZON
The LGBTQ nonprofit organization Seattle Pride has announced it has parted ways with Amazon as a corporate sponsor for its annual parade.
In a statement on Tuesday, the organization shared its concern about Amazon’s initial support of anti-LGBTQ politicians and allowing anti-LGBTQ organizations to raise donations through its AmazonSmile program.
The organization noted that Amazon donated more than $450,000 to lawmakers who voted against the Equality Act in 2020.
The organization also said that AmazonSmile, a shopping program that enables customers to donate to charities as they shop, allowed more than 40 anti-LGBTQ organizations to list and raise funds through their program.
BITS & PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: From Ukraine to China, we need to mitigate vulnerabilities
Lighter click: Can’t stop looking at this
Notable links from around the web:
Bored Ape Yacht Club creator raises $450 million to build an NFT metaverse (The Verge / Jacob Kastrenakes)
How Native Americans Are Trying to Debug A.I.’s Biases (The New York Times / Alex V. Cipolle)
Firefighters and pizza joints join the rush for last-mile data (Protocol / Kate Kaye)
One more thing: New crypto fees
New fees for cryptocurrency transactions through Venmo and its parent company PayPal went into effect Monday.
The two companies previously charged a flat $0.50 fee for cryptocurrency transactions up to $25, a 2.3 percent fee for purchases or sales between $25 and $100 and a 2 percent fee for transactions between $100 and $200.
Starting Monday, transactions up to that $200 mark will carry a minimum flat fee. There will be a $0.49 fee up to $5, a $0.99 cent fee up to $25, a $1.99 fee up to $75 and a $2.49 fee for the rest of transactions up to $200.
Transactions over $200 will keep the same percentage fees as they did previously, 1.8 percent for purchases or sales up to $1,000 and 1.5 percent for anything above that.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you Wednesday.
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