Research

The 2019 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill Conference Report encouraged the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) to reorganize its technology and science function by creating a new office within GAO and to report to the Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittees on plans for doing so. In January 2019, GAO created the Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team to build on its decades-long track record of providing Congress with science and technology (S&T) analysis.

Sens Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act, which requires companies to study and fix flawed computer algorithms that result in inaccurate, unfair, biased or discriminatory decisions impacting Americans. The Algorithmic Accountability Act would:

AT&T is the fastest US mobile provider but probably not by as much as first reported, according to new information from speed-test company Ookla. AT&T’s overall mobile speed was artificially inflated in Ookla’s latest speed ratings by the sheer number of people testing their new “5G E” connections, whose icon notificat

In short, the Save the Internet Act would repeal the Federal Communications Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom Order adopted in 2017 (although it did not go into effect until 2018). But the act was amended on its way to passage by the full House of Representatives; the legislation now also includes the following provisions:

The paper builds on a working group report that led to the creation of the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA), which was formally established in Dec 2018. The Working Paper concludes that organizational consolidation of economists into a single unit, much like the arrangement of the new OEA, can provide more independent and higher quality economic analysis within regulatory agencies.

Americans have a paradoxical attachment to the social-media platforms that have transformed communication, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds, saying they regard services such as Facebook to be divisive and a threat to privacy but continue to use them daily. Across age groups and political ideologies, adults in the survey said they held a negative view of the effects of social media—even though 70% use such services at least once a day.

This framework for US privacy legislation outlines clear rules of the road for entities using personal data, details strong rights for people who interact with those entities, and gives the FTC effective authority to make and enforce these rules as technologies evolve. In general, it is designed to shift more of the burden to safeguard personal data from users to companies, and to alleviate the burden on individuals.

House Commerce Committee leadership -- Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-PA), and Rep. A. Donald McEachin (D-VA) -- wrote the Federal Communications Commission looking for answers as to how inaccurate broadband data made it into a draft of its upcoming Sec. 706 report to Congress on the availability of advanced communications. “If we don’t have accurate information about where broadband Internet is available, how are we ever going to connect our rural and underserved communities?” Rep. McEachin said.

More than 540 million Facebook records — including users’ comments, likes, account names and more — were left exposed on an Amazon cloud-computing server, researchers announced, marking the latest major privacy and security mishap to plague the social-networking giant. The trove is one of two data sets discovered to be in full public view by the security firm UpGuard, which also raised alarms with a second app developer that appears to have mishandled Facebook records including users’ interests and potentially their app passwords. Facebook said its policies prohibit app developers from “sto