[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 88 (Monday, May 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2336-S2338]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



              Protecting Human Rights During Pandemic Act

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, to all of my colleagues and to our 
staff here in the Chamber, those who are mothers, I hope they had a 
wonderful Mother's Day weekend, and it is a joy to return to work 
today. I will tell you, I am really blessed to have some of those moms. 
They are policy experts, and they are a part of my staff. I listen a 
lot to what they have to say.
  Like with all of our staff, I admire their dedication and their 
focus--especially now and especially when it comes to discussing how 
this COVID crisis is affecting their children, how they are learning 
and how they are utilizing technology to communicate and practicing 
distance learning and hearing what schools are doing as they are all 
going through a learning curve. We are all going through a learning 
curve on how to utilize technology.
  The thing that is so significant, as I talked to so many of these 
working moms and dads, what we realize and they realize and what they 
highlight with me is that embodied in this technology, we have a lot of 
dangers that exist and vulnerabilities that are being created to the 
privacy of our children.
  Long before students were forced to attend classes via webcam, 
Congress began taking a hard look at how the companies providing 
digital classrooms were protecting what I term the ``virtual you''--you 
and your presence online--how they were protecting that virtual you of 
underage users.

[[Page S2337]]

  As it turns out, what we found in the work that we were doing--some 
of it I did while I was in the House, as chairman of the Subcommittee 
on Communications and Technology of Energy and Commerce, and some of 
that work I continued here. But back in 2015, as we started doing a 
deeper dive on what was happening with protecting privacy and presence 
online, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a complaint with the 
FTC against Google, alleging that their Google for Education platform 
was exploiting students' personal information and potentially exposing 
it to third parties.
  Think about this. The Google for Education program--kids were logging 
on, and they were using this. Google--what were they doing? Data 
mining. What were they doing with what they were data mining, which is 
your information? They were then sharing that with third parties. And 
guess what. You didn't know. The parents didn't know, and the children 
didn't know. What we found out was that one wrong click, and any 
program administrator could expose a student's virtual you to potential 
outside websites. A 2017 report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation 
confirmed and expanded on these concerns. Even free products can come 
at the cost of student privacy.
  Last month, Google donated 4,000 Chromebooks to students in rural 
California--4,000 Chromebooks. That sounds like a very generous 
donation, a way to help close that digital divide, a way to connect 
students to the internet, to open up the world and bring the world in 
to them. The problem is that this year, the State of New Mexico sued 
Google over a similar program, alleging that Google was using 
Chromebooks to track students. Well, how about that? Here you go. Here 
is a free Chromebook. Use it. But what happens? All of that research 
work you were doing via Google is being data-mined, tracked, and 
shared.
  We need to be wary of these free programs because what we now know is 
that when it is free, you and your information and your child's 
information is tracked, it is data-mined, and it is shared. That means 
that you and your information are the product--the freebie, if you 
will. The Chromebook is simply the way, the mechanism to take your 
information from you and allow Google or Big Tech to have it, and then 
they sell it to somebody over here who is going to do what with it? 
Guess what. They are going to be marketing back to you. That data is a 
valuable resource, and what do they do once they have data-mined it? 
They are going to sell it to whoever is willing to pay the highest 
price so they can use it and market back to you and your kids something 
that they want you to buy. Now, that is what is happening.
  I am sure everyone remembers the video platform Zoom. Many of us have 
probably used it in meetings even today. Zoom was thrust into the 
spotlight as we started this COVID crisis, and after watchdogs 
uncovered not only a research and development presence in China but 
protocols that allowed data, including--now, I want you to listen to 
this. This is one of those buyer beware things--user beware. We are 
talking about Zoom. What was discovered was that Zoom allowed data, 
including screen captures and video--that means you on screen; you, 
your face, and video; what you are saying; the presentation you are 
making; the question you are asking--all of that to flow in and out of 
China.
  Schools, corporations, and even Senate offices have all been forced 
to question this platform, to give up this platform and to find some 
other way to communicate. We know that many of our children are going 
to school in Zoom classrooms every day. In our churches, our choirs are 
singing on Zoom, and sermons are being delivered on Zoom.
  The rise in mandatory use of technology by students prompted me, 
along with Senators Markey, Hawley, Blumenthal, Cassidy, and Durbin, to 
ask the FTC to launch a major investigation into how these platforms 
are protecting student privacy. What we are wanting to know is, what 
are you doing to put that wall there so that the information of these 
underage users, these children, is not going to be shared? What are you 
doing to make certain that their faces, their images, their voices, and 
their questions are not going to be captured? Can you imagine anything 
more frightening than to think your child is sitting in a Zoom 
classroom, and this data is flowing to China, and somebody is capturing 
these images, and then that is going to be shared with somebody you 
don't know. You don't know what they are going to do with it, and you 
don't know why they want it, and you, as a parent, have chosen to 
completely stay off social media because you don't want that kind of 
intrusion into your child's life.
  Don't you think that these corporations ought to figure this out, 
that this is an area of concern for moms and dads and grandmoms and 
granddads, to protect these children? Oh, but it doesn't matter to 
China, does it? All China is interested in is making a buck off the 
American consumer. They feel like, if you use our service, we have got 
that right. I think we need to be sending a message to them.
  Both the education technology and the digital advertising industries 
are notoriously opaque about their privacy policies. I am joined by 
other members of the Judiciary Committee Tech Task Force in having 
conversations with many of these companies, and I will tell you, we 
have made some progress. I have been pleased with many of the 
companies' willingness to share with us some of these policies and to 
look for ways that we can protect unsuspecting consumers and our 
precious children
  Since the FTC is preparing to consider revisions to the Children's 
Online Privacy Protection Act, COPPA, now is the perfect time. It is 
the necessary time for a deep dive into the data collection and 
processing practices of these firms.
  You know what, sometimes we hear the phrase ``Oh, let's do it for the 
children.'' ``This is for the children.'' ``We have to do this or that 
for the children.'' Let me tell you something right now: This is one of 
those things that are absolutely for the children, to protect them 
online so that Big Tech and some of these China-owned companies--and 
bear in mind, colleagues, if you are doing business in China and if you 
are a company in China, who are you owned by? Who do you answer to? You 
answer to the Chinese Communist Party. I will tell you right now, I do 
not want them to have images of our children, data on where they sit, 
where they go to school, and what their interests are.
  These privacy policies have to be reviewed. We want to make 
absolutely sure that the FTC has all the facts they need to be certain 
we keep children safe online. Section 6 of the FTC Act empowers them to 
do this. I urge agency officials to make use of that authority. This is 
an imperative. The pandemic has shown us that it only takes a little 
disruption to prompt bad actors to take advantage of a situation.
  Here in the U.S., even during a pandemic, we have the right to 
challenge laws that we feel are unjust. But in many places around the 
world, the pandemic has provided an opportunity for oppressive regimes 
to enact so-called emergency laws that restrict human rights without 
justification or oversight. China and Russia--two of the big 
offenders--have used the crisis to ramp up their use of surveillance to 
restrict privacy and freedom of movement. ``We have to do it. We have a 
pandemic.'' That is what they say.
  In Bolivia and the Philippines, government officials are using the 
pandemic as an excuse to silence their legislative bodies and punish 
critics. ``Oh, leave it to us. We are going to be able to solve this. 
You don't need to weigh in.'' That is what they are saying.
  In Cambodia, Venezuela, Belarus, Egypt, Turkey, South Africa, and 
many other countries, officials are following China's playbook and 
preventing the journalists from publishing news that contradicts 
official propaganda. ``Don't bother with the truth. We are going to 
make up a version of the truth and then that is what we are going to 
tell people. Don't listen to anything else. Listen to us. We have truth 
coming at you. We are making it up as we go.'' That is what they are 
saying.
  The way they are using surveillance to limit freedom and to craft a 
message is something that should frighten everyone. It is all happening 
under the guise of ``combating COVID-19.''
  So last week, Senator Markey and I filed a bill that will help 
address these

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abuses. I thank Senator Markey for the great work he does on human 
rights and also the work he and I did on the House on online privacy.
  The Protecting Human Rights During Pandemic Act would require the 
State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development--or 
USAID--to take actions to prevent human rights abuses in the name of 
coronavirus response. The bill authorizes funding through 2025 for 
programs that support human rights defense during and in the aftermath 
of harmful responses to the pandemic. Congress would receive strategic 
plans from the State Department and USAID detailing how those funds are 
being put to use, as well as regular reports on human rights violations 
perpetrated in the name of pandemic response.
  The spread of COVID-19 has forced businesses, families, and 
governments to take extraordinary measures to protect human life. Some 
have proven effective; unfortunately, others are missing the mark. We 
still have much to do in terms of pandemic response, and we continue to 
work on it every day. But I encourage my colleagues not to let the 
severity of our situation distract from our responsibility to set an 
example for the rest of the world.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho is recognized.