Federal Privacy Preemption OK if AGs Have Authority, Weiser Tells Mountain Connect
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) doesn’t mind if a federal privacy law preempts the proposed Colorado Privacy Act as long as it's “as good as what we have” and gives state attorneys general the authority to protect consumers, he said Wednesday at the Mountain Connect Broadband Development Conference. Weiser also discussed digital literacy, broadband infrastructure and consumer protection, and blamed the need for individual state laws on a broken federal system.
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“A single federal privacy standard makes so much sense,” but due to congressional gridlock, “we are in a second-best world,” Weiser said. “We need a functioning federal government; we don’t have that at this point.
It's Weiser’s hope that Colorado’s privacy law will be copied for a federal version, he said. Privacy rulemakings in California and Europe are too prescriptive and technology focused, Weiser said. “Technology keeps evolving,” he said. State privacy rules should focus on principals rather than specific tech, Weiser said. “You have to reasonably protect the principal and then leave people with some discretion how they do that, and then audit them.”
Congress and other government entities “share a responsibility” to ensure the overbuilding problems that plagued the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program don't “happen again” with the rollout of the $65 billion in connectivity money from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said during the event. “When I was mayor of Denver I could see it at the local level, when I was governor” of Colorado “I could see it on the state level.”
Hickenlooper and other senators in the bipartisan group that crafted IIJA “discussed specifically … that we believe local communities know their own needs better than state government.” IIJA’s language for the $42.5 billion broadband, equity, access and deployment program makes sure “we work with local governments” to ensure unserved communities get priority for the funding, he said: “I don’t think we’ve got any excuses” for repeating the BTOP problems.
Public participation is necessary both to catch companies violating consumer privacy and to push back on inaccurate FCC broadband coverage maps, Weiser said, calling on the public to contact consumer protection authorities over data violations and false coverage claims. “The FCC will release a map we all know will be significantly flawed because it will be based on flawed data,” he said. Colorado and other states will need crowdsourced data to challenge the FCC maps and provide evidence that coverage is lacking in certain areas to get the most out of funds from the BEAD program, Weiser said. He also urged the public to report companies whose broadband speeds are slower than advertised. “That’s deception, that’s illegal. We will hold you to account,” Weiser said.
Adoption could be a larger problem than affordability because of the host of programs aimed at cheaper internet access, Weiser said. He proposed the creation of a “digital literacy corps” -- similar to AmeriCorps -- to address the “significant disadvantage” caused by digital literacy gaps.
A regulatory agency providing oversight of “Big Tech” is needed, said Weiser. He declined to weigh in on whether large tech companies or large telecom companies were “more evil” but said tech companies need more oversight. “Companies will do what can get away with and make money,” Weiser said. “No one has been watching.” A regulatory regime has long been in place for telecom companies, but for tech “we’re at square one,” he said. “We’ve barely had this conversation.”