HR 2644 Introduced – Internet Connected Device Industry

Earlier this month Rep. Latta (R,OH) introduced HR 2644, the State of Modern Application, Research, and Trends of (SMART) IoT Act. The bill would require the Commerce Department to conduct a study of the internet-connected devices industry. The bill is similar in purpose to HR 6032 from the 115^th Congress. The earlier bill passed in the House, but no action was taken in the Senate.

Differences

This bill is a re-write of the version passed in the House in the last session. The description of the study in §2(a) was completely re-written. The new description focuses the study on activities of the Federal government that support/regulate the internet connected device industry. All references to industry standard in the earlier bill have been removed. The only remaining non-governmental reference in the study description is a stripped down reference to ‘public-private partnerships’. Additionally, the new language also removes the requirement to “identify all regulations, guidelines, mandatory standards, voluntary standards, and other policies implemented by each of the Federal agencies” found in §2(a)(6) in the original bill.

Moving Forward

Lata is a subcommittee Chair in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, so he likely has enough influence to see this bill considered in Committee in this session. As with HR 6032, there is nothing in the bill that would draw any serious opposition and the new bill is likely to receive the same bipartisan support that early version received in the 115^th Congress.

Commentary

I still have the same objections to this bill as I did to the earlier version. Most certainly the continued use of the extremely vague and overly inclusive definition of ‘internet connected device’ is going to make any report on the topic on the topic next to useless.

HR 6032 Passes in House – Internet Connected Devices

Yesterday the House passed HR 6032, the State of Modern Application, Research, and Trends of (SMART) IoT Act, by a voice vote. The ‘debate’ lasted just over 8 minutes and consisted mainly of praising committee leadership for their bipartisan support for crafting this bill.

In my earlier post on this bill I had serious reservations about the definition of ‘internet connected devices’ used instead of trying to define IoT. That concern is further aggrevated by the discussion of the IoT problem found in the House Energy and Commerce Committee report on the bill. In both the sections describing the purpose of the bill and the need for the legislation, the term ‘internet connected devices’ is never used; all references are to the undefined acronym ‘IoT’.

Those discussions in the report clearly (but certainly not concisely) indicate that the Committee is concerned about a wide variety of devices that are connected to the internet but, may communicate over the internet without the specific control of the owner of the data that is being shared or with whom the data is being shared. But that concern is specifically ignored by the inclusion of the requirement in the definition of ‘internet connected devices’ that the physical object connected to the internet would “communicate information at the direction of an individual” {§2(c)(2)(A)}. One of the big problems of so many IoT devices is their capability to communicate information without the direction of the individual owner/operator of the device.

This bill obviously has bipartisan support and more importantly the lack of any significant opposition, so it could be passed in the Senate under their unanimous consent process. If there were a single Senator, however, that objected to this bill, the bill would languish in that body in the limited number of floor hours available for consideration of bills under regular order. I do not expect to see this bill reach the President’s desk.

HR 6032 Introduced – Internet Connected Devices

Last week Rep. Latta (R,OH) introduced HR 6032, the State of Modern Application, Research, and Trends of (SMART) IoT Act. The bill would require the Commerce Department to conduct a study of the internet-connected devices industry.

Study

Section 2 of the bill requires Commerce to conduct a two-part study. The first is a survey of the internet-connected devices industry and the second is a review of Federal government agencies that have jurisdiction over the industries identified in the first survey.

The bill relies on a very broad definition of ‘internet-connected devices’ which it specifically conflates with the term ‘Internet of Things’. Section 2(c)(2) defines internet-connected devices as a physical object that both:

• Is capable of connecting to the internet, either directly or indirectly through a network, to communicate information at the direction of an individual; and

• Has computer processing capabilities for collecting, sending, receiving, or analyzing data.

The inevitable report to Congress is required.

Moving Forward

Latta is the Chair of the Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He has used his influence there to conduct a markup hearing of this bill yesterday. The bill was adopted without amendment by a voice vote.

This bill is likely to move forward to the full Committee and then the full House without much in the way of opposition. It does not authorize any regulation or expenditure of funds, so there is little here to attract concern.

Commentary

The major problem with this bill is two-fold. First, it uses an overly broad definition which includes practically anything that can connect to the internet. Secondly, it provides no funds for the required study which limits the ability of the Department of Commerce to complete an effective study.

The definition problem is one common with any discussion of IoT. A reasonably good definition of IoT can be found on Wikipedia:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances and other items embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and connectivity which enables these things to connect and exchange data, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, resulting in efficiency improvements, economic benefits and reduced human intervention.

Unfortunately, even that definition has problems because its explication of types of ‘physical devices’ included in the definition is incomplete. It does not include, for example, control systems, building environment and access systems, and …. well we could just keep adding things.

This bill (and others, see S 1691 for example), instead of trying to define ‘IoT’ directly, relies on the definition of ‘internet connected devices’. Unfortunately, that forces the inclusion of just about any electronic device, including phones, personal computers, main frames and even super computers. This goes well beyond the IoT problem that Latta is trying to address.

Now, this could result in one of two things. DoC could attempt to complete the survey and report using the definition provided in the bill. But, the lack of specific funding would make that difficult and would result in an incomplete study. Or, it could attempt to divine Latta’s actual intent and limit their study to the ‘smart devices’ (another poorly defined term) that are being increasingly being connected to the internet with securityless (made up word) abandon.

Oh yes; security. That is something else that is curiously missing from specific mention in the bill. Well, not entirely true, in the paragraph on the report to Congress it requires that the report includes “recommendations of the Secretary for growth of the United States economy through the secure [emphasis added] advancement of internet-connected devices” {§2(b)(2)}. Of course, no definition is provided so we could be talking about cybersecurity, supply chain security, or even (a stretch to be sure) physical security.

Okay, one last problem (really, I am stopping here), there is no mention of the bandwidth issue that is associated with these internet-connected devices. And that would include radio frequency bandwidth for both the wireless connections nearly universally used by these devices and the amount of information clogging the information highway.

Bills Introduced – 6-7-18

Yesterday with both the House and Senate in session there were 47 bills introduced. Of those, two may be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

HR 6032 To direct the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a study and submit to Congress a report on the state of the internet-connected devices industry in the United States. Rep. Latta, Robert E. [R-OH-5]

S 3023 An original bill making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other purposes. Sen. Collins, Susan M. [R-ME]

I will be watching for the outside possibility that HR 6032 will consider specific requirements for either control system devices or cybersecurity in the reporting criteria.

S 3023 would be the Senate version of the THUD appropriations bill. I typically watch that for chemical transportation issues.