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A growing number of states have enacted laws this year to study artificial intelligence (AI), ahead of possible legislative action to address expected threats to jobs, civil liberties, and property rights with the emerging technology. The specific goals of these committees have varied. For instance, Minnesota is studying how intelligence sharing with AI might enable…

Two more state governors, those of Maine and North Dakota, have signed bills into law that adopt the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) data security model law (Model Law). Maine and North Dakota join several other states that have already passed similar laws. Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin have similar…

This week, Consumer Reports published a Model State Privacy Act. The Consumer advocacy organization proposed model legislation “to ensure that companies are required to honor consumers’ privacy.” The model legislation is similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act, but seeks to protect consumer privacy rights “by default.”  Some additional provisions of the model law…

The United States has a lot of bridges –more than 600,000 –many of which are in disrepair or reaching the end of their planned lives. According to the 2017 Infrastructure Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers, 9.1 percent of the bridges in the U.S. were structurally deficient in 2016, meaning that drivers made an average of 188 million trips across a deficient bridge every day. That means that inspecting bridges is a critical activity for many states. Many states are looking to drones to bolster that activity. For example, the State of Minnesota plans to make drones a standard part of its bridge inspection toolkit. While Minnesota isn’t among the states with the highest number or percentage of deficient bridges, it does struggle with the increasing costs of bridge inspections, and that’s where drones come in.
Continue Reading Drones Make Bridge Inspections Cheaper and Easier

As was expected, President Trump signed into law the rescinding of the broadband privacy regulations adopted in 2016 by the Obama administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The now rescinded regulations would have required internet service providers (ISPs) to obtain consent from a customer before using or selling the customer’s Web browsing history, app usage history,…

Last week, Mille Lacs County and former investigator for the Mille Lacs County Family Services, Mikki Jo Peterick, agreed to pay $1 million to settle a proposed federal class action which alleged that a former employee of Mille Lacs County Family Services (Peterick) accessed 269 individuals’ driver’s license information for the employee’s own personal use.…

Across the United States, state Departments of Transportation (DOT) are using or testing drones to conduct bridge inspections, accident assessments, surveys and to conduct risk mitigation. A recent report by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials found that 17 state DOTs are using drones in these ways, and an additional 16 DOTs…

Yesterday, March 16, 2016, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press release announcing that it has settled its investigation of North Memorial Health Care System (NMHCS), located in Minnesota, for $1.55 million saying that the settlement “underscores the importance of executing HIPAA business associate agreements.”

The investigation started after NMHCS self-reported in September…