Last week Sen. Fischer (R,NE) introduced S 2607,
the Developing Innovation and Growing the Internet of Things (DIGIT) Act. The
intent of the bill is to maximize the potential and development of the Internet
of Things (IoT) to the benefit of stakeholders including businesses,
governments, and consumers.
Strategic Planning
After outlining the ‘congressional findings’ that lead to
the need to maximize the potential of IoT in Section 2 the bill goes on in
Section 3 to require the Secretary of Commerce to convene a working group to “provide
recommendations to Congress on how to appropriately plan for and encourage the
proliferation of the Internet of Things in the United States” {§3(b)(1)}.
The working group will examine the will examine {§3(b)(2)}:
• Current and future spectrum
needs.
• The regulatory environment,
including identification of sector-specific regulations, Federal grant practices,
and budgetary or jurisdictional challenges.
• Consumer protection.
• Privacy and security.
• The current use of the technology
by Federal agencies and their preparedness to adopt it in the future.
The working group will be made up of representatives from
the following Federal agencies who will be consulting with various private
sector stakeholders {§3(b)(3)}:
• The Department of Transportation;
• The Federal Communications Commission;
• The Federal Trade Commission;
• The National Science Foundation;
• The Department of Commerce;
• The National Telecommunications
and Information Administration;
• The National Institute of Standards
and Technology; and
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration; and
• The Office of Science and
Technology Policy.
One year after the enactment of this bill the working group
will provide a report to Congress on the results of the study and any
recommendations to Congress.
Moving Forward
Ms Fisher is a mid-ranking Republican on the Senate
Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned
for consideration. One of her co-sponsors, Sen. Brian Schatz is the ranking
member of the Communications, Technology, Innovation and the Internet
Subcommittee. As such it is quite possible that they have adequate political
pull to get this bill considered by the full Committee. Since the bill requires
only a study and a report, there is nothing that I can see that would hinder
its adoption if so considered.
The question then is if there is enough political interest
in the bill to move it to the floor. Unless this bill is considered in
Committee in the next month or so, the packed and election reduced schedule
will make consideration unlikely. The alternative would be to include this bill
in an authorization or spending bill.
Commentary
It is interesting that of the five items that the study
group is supposed to look at the bill only provides detailed instructions for
one of those; the spectrum needs of IoT. While that is certainly something that
people have been overlooking in much of the grandiose extrapolations about the
future growth of IoT, it is far from the only item that deserves detailed
consideration.
It is very disheartening to see ‘privacy and security’ not
afforded at least the same level of attention as the spectrum needs of IoT.
This is especially true since the two are lumped together as if they were
intimately linked. While in IoT in the personal sector (in homes and in
personal electronic devices) privacy and security are closely related, that is
not so true in IoT in the manufacturing and transportation sectors. In those
sectors privacy is still an issue (but much less obviously so), but IoT security
is much more closely linked to industrial and public safety and to a lesser
extent intellectual property. Failing to look at those linkages will provide a
very much too limited look at IoT security.
The same can be said for each of the other explicated areas
of concern for the working group. Each of them deserved much more attention
than they were given in this bill. It almost looks like the drafters got thru
the explanation of what spectrum needs had to be looked at and the realized
that the deadline for turning in their class assignment had arrived. They then
added a brief paragraph about submitting reports to Congress and turned in the
paper. It really needs to be returned by the professor, marked; ‘INCOMPLETE’.
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