Below is my post that I wrote for This Week in Privacy to hopefully be discussed on air.
If you live in the US, call your reps. This is becoming more and more real. I left info on what you can say in the post below.
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This may be a big ask but can you point out where in each bill or as applicable is the contention with privacy? I see your comment in the other thread but it would be hard for one to read for themselves of the exact concern you’re trying everyone to act upon.
If you are able, please point out within the bills (line wise) for us to have a look ourselves. Thank you!
Apologies to the TWIP crew for how I worded my post! When I said “this is our Chat Control” what I meant was that this is our big moment of needing to fight back against a huge downgrade for our privacy in the US. I don’t think it’s on the same level as Chat Control, but with the main threat being the tying of your identity to all that you do in the digital world, it’s pretty close.
To you’re point, the two main bills that I am concerned about are the Kids Online Safety Act and the App Store Accountability Act.
As I understand it, KOSA would promote censorship of the internet and could lead companies down the path of having to do age verification to comply. EFF has a page on contacting your reps about it.
For the App Store Accountability Act, if it’s like the state laws that recently went into effect in Texas, it would require age verification to use the app store on iOS or Android. This bill brings that idea to the national level.
I am not familiar with the other bills that are going to be reviewed, but the overall concern about not wanting to erode our right to privacy in the context of another problem still holds true. Hopefully I can find a good source to help comb through this as it gets discussed.
My hope to is to end these efforts sooner rather than later. For me, 2025 was a year of finding out about bad laws going into effect way after they were signed into law, so I am trying to get ahead of future legislation when I can. In this case we’re talking about federal legislation, so there is no escaping it just because you live in another state.