Paper Clarifies Global Reality on Gov. Access to Data in the Cloud
A recent paper by Hogan Lovells’ Privacy and Information Management practice, debunks the frequently-expressed assumption that the United States is alone in permitting governmental access to data for law enforcement or national security reasons. It examines the laws of ten countries, including the United States, with respect to governmental authorities’ ability to access data stored in or transmitted through the Cloud, and documents the similarities and differences among the various legal regimes. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.
SCOTUS Ruling Could Raise Bar for Business Method and Software Patents
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision in WildTangent, Inc. v. Ultramercial, LLC which upheld the patentability of Ultramercial’s business method patent covering media distribution methods that allow users to view online content by viewing online ads instead of paying for the content. The ruling could potentially raise the bar to patentability under the “subject matter” requirement of section 101 for all business method patents and possibly future software patents as well. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.
Administration Releases Digital Government Roadmap
Last week, Federal CIO Steve VanRoekel released a Roadmap for Digital Government, entitled “Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People.” The strategy document provides agencies with a 12-month roadmap that focuses on several priority areas and seeks to enable more efficient and coordinated digital service delivery by requiring agencies to establish specific, measurable goals for delivering better digital services; encouraging agencies to deliver information in new ways that fully utilize the power and potential of mobile and web-based technologies; ensuring the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy; requiring agencies to establish central online resources for outside developers and to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.
District Race to the Top Appropriately Prioritizes Personalized Learning
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week announced a new federal Race to the Top District competition, providing nearly $400 million in school district grants to “personalize and individualize” to “take classroom learning beyond a one-size-fits-all model and bring it into the 21st century.” SIIA has long been a leading voice for redesigning education to personalize learning, and applauds the Obama Administration for providing this leadership. Read more on SIIA’s Digital Discourse Blog.
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David LeDuc is Senior Director, Public Policy at SIIA. He focuses on e-commerce, privacy, cyber security, cloud computing, open standards, e-government and information policy.