European Union The General Data Protection Regulation, enacted in 2018, provides Perfect data privacy protection, but it stands in stark contrast to the scarcity of legislation in the United States, where there are no comprehensive federal data privacy laws on the books. In his second State of the Union speech, however, US President Joe Biden devoted more attention than ever to the need for such a measure.
With the political control of the US Congress now divided, Biden asserts that data privacy legislation can have bipartisan support. It’s an idea already increase traction in recent years, and the mention of data privacy issues in Tuesday’s State of the Union Address set a precedent that the subject should be a genuine concern of the presidents of the United States. and the public.
“Ultimately we have to hold social media companies accountable for the experiments they are doing [on] children for profit,” Biden said in his speech, which received a standing ovation from members of both sides. “It is time to pass bipartisan legislation to prevent Big Tech from collecting personal data about our children and young people online. Bans ads that target children and imposes tighter limits on the personal data companies collect about all of us.”
Previous US presidents rarely mentioned data privacy in their State of the Union Address. Former President Donald Trump has never mentioned the topic in any of his annual speeches. Former President Barack Obama addressed the topic only once in his 2014 State of the Union Address. the following disclosure about the previously undisclosed scale and scope of the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs. He then said, “Working with this Congress, I will reform our surveillance programs—because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public trust, here and abroad, that the privacy of ordinary people is not violated.”
In his first State of the Union Address, in 2022, Biden spoke about data privacy as it relates to the protection of children. “It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban ads that target children, ask tech companies to stop collecting personal data about our children,” he said at the time. .
Biden’s remarks this year went even further, signaling a shift in general perception of the urgency of improving data privacy protections in the United States. However, whether this step will lead to effective action by 2023 remains unclear. In his speech, Biden called for cooperation among lawmakers — a lack of dynamism in both houses on Capitol Hill. “Dear my Republican friends, if we can work together in the last Congress, there is no reason why we can’t work together and find consensus on what to do,” he said. important thing as well in this Parliament.
All sections of American politics would likely agree that the previous Congress was not exactly a prime example of a highly efficient, collaborative legislative branch. By addressing data privacy in his State of the Union address, Biden is putting more pressure on his administration and lawmakers to address an issue that affect everyone.
