This post includes articles regarding the state of tech legislation in 2020, privacy bill discussions, proposed changes to Section 230, and an online education fight in Virginia.
With our "Interesting Policy Reads" blog posts, the EDUCAUSE Policy Office highlights recent articles on federal policy issues and developments that are directly relevant to members or provide insights on higher education policy in general.
- What to Expect on Tech Legislation in 2020, Axios, January 28, 2020. (Lawmakers are expected to prioritize bipartisan bills on specific issues like children's online protections and restraints on tech giants' power. Prioritizing these bills is a departure from the efforts last year to pass sweeping legislation and increases the likelihood of these solutions becoming a reality.)
- Key Lawmaker Eyes Pre-Election Changes to Tech Liability Shield, Bloomberg, January 28, 2020. (Representative Jan Schakowsky is raising concerns about how fake information could be used in the 2020 presidential election and is exploring possible changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a piece of legislation that protects big technology platforms from responsibility for user-generated content.)
- Lawmakers Claim Progress on Online Privacy Bill, The Hill, January 28, 2020. (Democrat and Republican lawmakers have committed to bipartisan negotiations on passing a comprehensive online privacy bill after both parties failed to write legislation on their own.)
- US Colleges Are Trying to Install Location Tracking Apps on Students' Phones, The Verge, January 28, 2020. (Nearly forty US colleges are using an app to track students' locations—a move that has been criticized in the past—in an attempt to monitor and increase class attendance.)
- Virginia's Fight Over Online Ed, Inside Higher Ed, January 30, 2020. (Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has proposed tightening eligibility requirements for the Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant program to exclude students who take online classes, but the proposal is being heavily criticized by Liberty University as an attack on lower-income college students.)
For more information about policy issues impacting higher education IT, please visit the EDUCAUSE Review Policy Spotlight blog as well as the EDUCAUSE Policy page.
Kathryn Branson is a Senior Associate with Ulman Public Policy.
© 2020 Kathryn Branson. The text of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License.