InsideSources

2018 was a big year for tech: besides a multitude of scandals from the likes of Facebook and Google, lawmakers and regulators at the state and federal level explored consumer data privacy, cybersecurity, election security, fintech and net neutrality legislation, to name a few.

Going into the new year with a Democratic House, experts expect to see movement on a privacy law, maybe some antitrust action taken against Big Tech, as well as maybe, finally, an election security bill and a symbolic push to legislate net neutrality.

Here’s a quick rundown of what tech trends to expect in five key areas in 2019:

 

1. Big banks will buy up fintechs, and expect a fintech IPO boom.

In 2018, the Department of the Treasury called for the regulation of fintech and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced it would allow fintech companies to apply for national bank charters — despite states’ efforts to lure fintechs into state bank charters.

But there’s been very little movement on the bank charter front, most likely because big banks are buying up fintech companies and will likely continue to do so in 2019, according to CB Insights, a research and analysis firm focusing on tech and innovation.

As big banks struggle to innovate, strategies are increasingly shifting to buy up the innovative startups that could soon become competitors.

The fintechs that don’t get acquired may start issuing IPOs, as up until this point the fintech industry has mainly focused on venture backing.

 

2. Congress will crack down on Big Tech with privacy law, potentially antitrust action.

Experts expect Democrats and Republicans alike to push a privacy legislation in the next congressional session. Some legislators have already hinted at their own drafts.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and the Center for Democracy and Technology have already released their own consumer-centric bills that focus on issues like consumer data protection and privacy, but they’re the first in a tidal wave of drafts and suggestions expected to flood Congress in the next few months.

The big point of tension will be between industry needs and safe harbors vs. consumer protections, and right now it’s unclear which way Congress will sway.

One thing both Democrats and Republicans agree on at the moment is the potential for antitrust action against some of the big tech companies, like Facebook and Google. The Trump administration has hinted at potential antitrust action, but breaking up the companies may be difficult to do in court given the current economic understanding of competition and consumer harm.

Regardless, Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will likely look for ways to stop tech companies from getting quite so big and accumulating so much social influence.

 

3. More federal agencies will crack down on cybersecurity.

Numerous reports released over the last year show how terrible federal agencies are at protecting themselves from cybercriminals — and even the more vigilant agencies, like the Department of Defense, aren’t doing that well.

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that some of the biggest agencies are doing better on the cybersecurity front, but there’s still a long way to go, and Congress knows this. The House Energy and Commerce Committee already released a cybersecurity strategy report detailing how it hopes to tackle cyber problems in 2019.

Thanks to a new law establishing a cybersecurity agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), regulators may be able to help federal agencies improve as well as hold them accountable for poor cybersecurity.

Even the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it would make cybersecurity a priority in 2019 to better protect financial markets.

These efforts don’t come a moment too soon as cyberattacks continue to ramp up and become more sophisticated and complex, according to the McAfee Labs 2019 Threat Predictions Report.

 

4. The 5G fight will escalate.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been working hard to allow the telecom industry to launch 5G wireless networks, but municipalities are fighting for the right to regulate 5G deployment themselves.

Part of the problem is the telecom industry needs more spectrum and there are still roadblocks to getting what it needs. It’s shaping up to be a tense year for the industry as it seeks to launch quickly and compete with China and other nations.

 

5. The net neutrality fight will continue with legislative efforts and lawsuits.

Many activist groups on both sides of the debate have been pushing for Congress to legislate net neutrality and end the ping-pong of rules from the FCC once and for all, but even if net neutrality-focused Democrats pass a bill in the House, it will likely die in the Senate or on the president’s desk.

Still, symbolic attempts to reinstate hard-line net neutrality rules will be popular with some liberal voters and could set the stage for future net neutrality legislation if Democrats win the White House in 2020.

If legislative efforts don’t work, a few pending court cases could result in reinstatement of the FCC’s Title II net neutrality rules.

First there’s Mozilla v. FCC, for which the first oral arguments are scheduled for Feb. 1, 2019, and then there’s the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state of California for passing its own net neutrality rules, for which oral arguments have not yet been scheduled.

Experts disagree on how the net neutrality debate will shake out: some say net neutrality’s days are numbered, but others say the court cases could save it.

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President Obama on Tuesday announced highly anticipated and equally divisive executive orders to amp gun control and reduce firearms-related deaths, including new government research into technology designed to digitally lock and track guns.

“Every single year more than 30,000 have their lives cut short by guns,” the president said during a televised speech at the White House Tuesday. “The United States of America is not the the only country on Earth with violent or dangerous people. We are not inherently more prone to violence. But we are the only advanced country on Earth that sees this kind of mass violence erupt with this kind of frequency.”

The major tenets of the White House plan, enacted after three years of Republican-blocked attempts to enact legislation in Congress, focus on expanding background checks online and at gun shows, investing $500 million into mental health treatment, updating the background check process, giving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI more authority and personnel to police gun sales and require anyone selling firearms to register with the federal government.

“So the gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now, but they cannot hold America hostage,” Obama said. “We do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom.”

On the technical side, the orders instruct the Justice, Homeland Security and Defense Departments to “conduct or sponsor research into gun safety technology that would reduce the frequency of accidental discharge or unauthorized use of firearms.”

“The president has also directed the departments to review the availability of smart gun technology on a regular basis, and to explore potential ways to further its use and development to more broadly improve gun safety,” the administration said in a White House blog post.

All three department secretaries have until April to report back to the administration with a “strategy designed to expedite the real-world deployment of such technology.”

“We’re going to boost gun safety technology,” Obama said. “Today, many gun injuries and deaths are the result of legal guns that were stolen or misused or discharged accidentally.”

The president said in 2013 alone, more than 500 people were killed as a result of accidental gun discharges, including 30 children under the age of five.

“In the greatest, most technologically advanced nation on Earth, there is no reason for this,” he continued. “We need to develop new technologies that make guns safer. If we can set it up so you can’t unlock your phone unless you’ve got the right fingerprint, why can’t we do the same thing for our guns?”

“If there’s an app that can help us find a missing tablet — which happens to me often the older I get — if we can do it for your iPad, there’s no reason we can’t do it with a stolen gun. If a child can’t open a bottle of aspirin, we should make sure that they can’t pull a trigger on a gun.”

While much of the technology the president described has already been developed at least in concept — including fingerprint readers on gun lock boxes, GPS chips and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in gun frames capable of tracking a weapon’s location and how it’s used — gun rights advocates claim such technology will inevitably slow a gun owners’ ability to access their weapons in emergencies.

“So we’re going to advance research,” Obama said. “We’re going to work with the private sector to update firearms technology.”

Republicans in Congress including House Speaker Paul Ryan wasted no time criticizing the president’s orders as gross executive overreach, and said the regulations will face challenges in the courts.

“From day one, the president has never respected the right to safe and legal gun ownership that our nation has valued since its founding. He knows full well that the law already says that people who make their living selling firearms must be licensed, regardless of venue,” Ryan said in a statement Tuesday. “Still, rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most law-abiding of citizens. His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty.”

Ryan added Congress would do its part to challenge the orders.

“No matter what President Obama says, his word does not trump the Second Amendment. We will conduct vigilant oversight,” the speaker said. “Ultimately, everything the president has done can be overturned by a Republican president, which is another reason we must win in November.”

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