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Committee advances bills to expand online privacy and require safety safeguards for minors
Summary
The committee approved House Bill 1717 to extend COPPA-like data protections to older minors and House Bill 1726 to require platform duty of care, an online safety council and algorithm transparency; both bills include enforcement powers for the state attorney general and were passed with amendments.
The House Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative & Military Affairs Committee voted to advance two related measures aimed at protecting children’s personal data and online safety: House Bill 1717, which extends data protections, and House Bill 1726, which creates platform duties of care and an online safety council.
Representative Zach Gramlich, state representative for District 50, introduced both bills and described HB1717 as an Arkansas-level extension of federal protections. "COPPA already exists... But we're gonna be trying to raise that in Arkansas today to extend those protections to students 13 to students and children 13 [to] 17," Gramlich said. Dr. Megan Repp, vice president of the Arkansas Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, testified in favor of the bills, citing research on youth device use: "Research shows that children as young as 2 years old are using a mobile device on a daily basis... 97 percent of teens are using the Internet daily, and almost half say they use it almost constantly."
House Bill 1717…
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