Tech Foundations for Congressional Staff

Congress remains in recess through September 9. While members of Congress are away from Washington, many congressional staff attended two days of presentations this week on new developments in current and emerging technologies at Georgetown Law’s annual Tech Foundations for Congressional Staff event. Topics covered ranged from “New Developments in Privacy-Impacting Technologies” and “Realities of Implementing the GDPR and CCPA” to “Data, Inference & Algorithmic Fairness,” “The Use & Impact of Facial Recognition Technologies,” and “New Approaches in Content Moderation,” among others.

8chan Owner Subpoenaed

In the meantime, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Ranking Member Mike Rogers (R-AL) announced on Wednesday that the Committee has subpoenaed 8chan owner Jim Watkins to testify on September 5 as part of “ongoing oversight work on countering extremist content on social media platforms.”

Tariff Delay

On Tuesday, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) announced that the Administration will delay until December 15 a new 10% tariff on certain Chinese-manufactured products, including cell phones, laptops, and certain clothing, among other goods. The tariffs were originally set to take effect on September 1. USTR will also create an exclusion process for other goods.

FTC Holds Workshop on Truth-in-Advertising, Data Security

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced late last week that its new Technology Task Force (TTF) is seeking a Technology Fellow to support monitoring technology markets. Specifically, the fellow will play a key role in investigations into claims of anticompetitive behavior in markets where technology is a particularly important dimension of competition. Meanwhile, the FTC hosted a workshop today in Atlanta focused on truth-in-advertising and data security compliance in collaboration with the Office of the Georgia Attorney General, the State Bar of Georgia Antitrust Law Section, and the Better Business Bureau Serving Metro Atlanta. The day-long event marks the first in the newly launched “Green Lights & Red Flags” series in which the Commission hosts workshops with regional partners to address social media marketing, data security, and other timely marketing topics.

Read more in McGuireWoods Consulting’s Emerging Technologies Washington Update.