House Energy and Commerce panel advances draft privacy bill with changes to algorithm provisions

An analysis of changes in the latest Rodgers draft from the April version, by Brandon Pugh and Steven Ward of the R Street Institute, says, “Some of the largest changes are related to impact assessments of covered algorithms.”

Pugh and Ward say, “The new focus is on the use of ‘certified independent auditors’ to conduct an impact assessment that results in a report to the entity, with an alternative being the entity submitting its own assessments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Originally, reports went to the Federal Trade Commission. Notably, the five delineated harms in the original draft for conducting assessments (including two that considered ‘disparate impact’) are removed and replaced with a new ‘consequential decision’ definition. Similar changes are seen with algorithm design evaluations.”