It has come to light that a bill to better protect student information from compromising breaches online is being pushed by the White House under Barack Obama’s reign. The bill is the result of a partnership with a Republican congressman on the U.S. House of Representatives’ leadership team, and Democrats in both the House and Senate.
President Obama had made his intentions clear regarding data protection and online privacy earlier this year, calling for stringent data laws to protect citizens privacy and data, while speaking at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, Tennessee on January 9, 2015.
The legislation, will ensure that strict measures are taken to protect student information and have it accessible only for educational and research purposes, according to a report published by Reuters on Thursday.
“Protecting America’s children from Big Data shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” said Representative Luke Messer of Indiana, chairman of the House’s Republican Policy Committee in a statement. He is working with Democratic Representative Jared Polis of Colorado, who is an Internet entrepreneur responsible for founding a network of charter schools, to bring forth the legislation within the next two weeks.
Anthem Inc, a major health insurer in the U.S. suffered a breach on Wednesday that F.B.I. is now reportedly investigating. Personal information of around 80 million people has been compromised.
“I am trying to make the most of the phrase, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste,'” said President Obama’s cybersecurity adviser Michael Daniel at an online seminar organized by Bloomberg Government. Citing such incidents, the adviser justified the push to the cyber legislation with Congress.
2014 witnessed a slew of online security breaches including those at Home Depot, Target and J.P. Morgan. With increasing internet activity, through social networking, online trading, etc., where miscreants can track and hack information for monetary gains, it becomes imperative for stringent measures to armour such vulnerabilities.
(Image credit: Beth Rankin, via Flickr)
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