Social Web Foundation Voices Concerns for Privacy Under 2nd Trump Term
Privacy protections might be sidelined during the Trump administration in order to focus on other emerging technology, said Mallory Knodel, founder of the Social Web Foundation, in a Friday piece for TechPolicy.Press.
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“In Trump’s first term, we saw an executive order on AI aimed at US competition in the global market,” Knodel said. Privacy and security concerns were raised since AI systems require significant amounts of personal data, she said. A larger concern is that companies are more and more unlikely to pick privacy over data in a market driven by AI, she added.
Despite the importance of privacy protections like transparency and data governance when creating AI systems, “there remain central concerns that companies have to want to ensure responsible data processing by companies to protect individuals' privacy because it is unlikely that during a Trump presidency they will be required to,” Knodel said.
Apart from AI, Republicans and Democrats are divided on key issues that have prevented a federal privacy act from being passed, Knodel said. One issue is preemption, “with Republicans favoring legislation that overrides existing state laws, simplifying compliance for business, and Democrats preferring to keep stricter state laws like California’s Consumer Privacy Act in place,” she said. Another big debate is whether to include a private right of action, with “Democrats wanting consumers to have the right to sue for violations while Republicans are concerned about a wave of class-action lawsuits increasing costs for businesses and stifling innovation,” she said.
Knodel called the TikTok ban “a distraction” and “counterproductive,” and said that the bill potentially leading to a ban on the social media platform could have instead been a piece of privacy legislation. “Republicans narrowly focused on TikTok as a national security threat: TikTok’s data collection could allow the Chinese government to access sensitive user information despite the fact that many platforms engage in similar practices,” she said. “Instead, a more comprehensive privacy law could have addressed systemic problems across all platforms, not just focused on TikTok, thus safeguarding American data from all tech companies.”