Meetings
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[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Friday, March 13 at 02:05 in the at this time. Back from an extended visit to the floor of the mornings and we're able to get a couple of bills through. Michael, good job on his
[Unidentified Committee Member]: own. Wow.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Wow. Today is the last day of crossover, so we're here to see if we can move three bills, H733, H650, and H211. We pick up H733 first. So we have our legislative council with us, Rick Steele.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: That's him.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: So I think we Rick walked us through the bill yesterday. Did anyone note any places where we need to make changes to the bill? Any discussion about the bill? Okay. Alright. I'd entertain a motion to report favorably on '8 07:33. Mitch Drafton 3.1. So moved. Moved by his work. Seconded by representative Carris Duncan. Is there any further discussion? If not, clerk can call the roll. Representative Bosch?
[Dave Bosch (Member)]: Yes. Representative Bootin? Yes. Representative Karen Carris Duncan? Yes.
[Emily Carris Duncan (Member)]: Representative Cooper? Yes. Representative Duke? Yes. Representative Micklus?
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: Yes. Representative Olson? Yes. Representative Priestley? Yes.
[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Representative White? Yes. Representative Granting? Yes. Representative Markup?
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yes. It's a different order. Thanks. Anyone like to report this one?
[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: I mean, I don't mind. No.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: You wanna take it on? I'll be happy to, but, you know, whatever people want. Tony? Dave, Tony?
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: I'll give it
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: a go. It's in it's on
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: on this one. Data privacy? Yeah. It's
[Unidentified Committee Member]: No. This is this is a Oh.
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: Oh, this one? Yeah.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I Okay.
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: I'm sorry.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Didn't help them. I wouldn't do that either. Okay.
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: I'm fine. Yeah. I can report this one.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Did you not, Sujay?
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: I wasn't doing handstands over.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. So Great. Tony, get the get the clean copy from Rick.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And send it to Nigel along with the along with the boat, 1100. Okay. Make sure you do it before tonight.
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: Okay. As soon as I as soon as yeah. As soon as he sends it over to me, I can I can I'll send it over to Nigel?
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Perfect. Okay. So now we'll take out h six fifty. That's an act relating to educational technology products. I know we looked at that yesterday, but I think there's another draft. Yes.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Do you have a right next real quick here. We're gonna have one more modification.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: Actually I have that already done. I'll show it to you if you'd like it. Jonathan, I can get it from copy at 07:33, but I'll copy you just in case. It's the one you couldn't We got that result. Okay. Okay, yes, H650, the EdTech bill, there is a new version. So I sent the committee chair for Act 4.1. I made a few changes and I'll note those at 4.2 and I'll send those over to Jonathan here during the walk through. Okay, so H650 inaccurately to an educational technology products. So no changes to page one of the build. Remember this is going down to chapter 62, the student privacy section, clarifying that it is the sub chapter, not the chapter, no changes there for enforcement. Page two, just updating the name of the section. This is something I forgot last time if it wasn't named correctly. So we're creating a new sub chapter in Title IX Chapter 62 called Education Technology because there might be more things you want to do with the user in this area. Starting off with registration, that's the first thing the committee wants to do is require that the EdTech providers actually register with the state. So no changes to the definitions, but I do want to note you decided last time that the word provides should be used instead of operates. So a provider of an EdTech product and provider mean a person that provides an EdTech product. Is that satisfactory, that term? So again, in addition to all the requirements that a business has to do, register as an LLC, whatever they want to do, you also must provide the following to the Secretary of State when you file something. So your name, no changes there, a link to your privacy policy. So number four has been kind of reconfigured. The name and a brief description of each product of the provider also indicating which products are offered at no cost facilities. That language was mostly there, but I've kind of reconfigured it to have it make sense. So they have to indicate the name, description, and then also make the checkbox which of these products are offered at no cost.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: That is just for their products.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: Number five, which products are known by the provider to be used in any school or school district? No changes there. So I added this because last time during the testimony from the AOE EdTech, formerly his title, but it seems like they weren't aware that we have student privacy laws in place that were passed several years ago. So maybe to remind everybody that you must abide by state on just the age appropriate design code, also subject to grade which sets forth a number of products lost for student information. So, B also would cover it, but sometimes you want to be specific and say this one maybe really applies to these two things, student privacy, age appropriate design code, these are two sub chapters that really I should look at. In addition to B, all federal and state privacy rules. Any questions about that? Okay, section two is the study to be conducted by AOE. So just as a refresher, they're going to consult with the Secretary of State and review all these registrations that they collect. They'll get that list from the Secretary and then they'll consult with schools to create a list of products that are being used in the state, EdTech products. They will cross reference those two lists and determine if there are certain providers that have not registered and forward those names to the AG. Number four, and Reverend, this is double check what you Determine were where assistive technology may be included in an individualized education plan. That was mostly there, but the words have been adjusted a little bit to make sense. Five, provide a recommendation as to how the state should certify EdTech products for use in schools, including which state entities should be involved in the certification process and to what extent, the criteria that you consider in this process, which at the note should include the product's compliance with state curriculum standards, advantages of using the product compared with non digital methods, which were in the middle last time but just going through it, whether the product was explicitly designed for educational use, design features of the product including any geolocation tracking, use of AI, which includes chatbots, synthetic content, and automated decision making tools. This is something we can this is newer. Before it was just AI. I know where previously you just wanted to limit AI, but I think there's maybe this is the decision point to the committee. Do you want to explain? Because AI can be pretty broad. So do you want to explain what AI is here or do you want to just let AOB determine what AI is?
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I like the broad language personally. I think that's going to capture more of what we want to make sure gets captured.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: So removing the highlighted portion? Just like it is. Oh, so you can be broader by removing the highlighted portion.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: Includes But in our language doesn't mean it's a limited list.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: Right. It's not limited. Targeted advertising, personalized recommendation systems, access to adults, unknown to students, features that would meet people's needs. And then five has been reworked whether the product serves as a beneficial, assistive as technology or provides some other form of benefit for special education purposes. That was recommended, language. And the data privacy practices of the provider of the product. The timeline and estimated cost to establish and implement the certification process. The estimated cost or cost savings for schools assuming a state certification process is established. And whether any third party services including Internet safety labs should be utilized to assist in the certification. Six is the same, provide the same with any information relevant. And the reports, we added the education committees last time, so no changes there. And that is wrap 4.2, which I will email to Jonathan so he can post it.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Questions, comments, discussion? Pretty good with the final with the product that we had to make it a final product? K. I entertain a motion to report favorably on page six fifty, draft number 4.2. Motion made by representative Olson. Do they have seconds? Seconded by Representative White. Any further discussion? If not, the clerk can call the roll.
[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Representative Bosch? Yes. Representative Boutin? Yep. Representative Kirk White?
[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Representative Cooper? Yes. Representative Duke? Yes.
[Abbey Duke (Member)]: Representative Micklus?
[Anthony 'Tony' Micklus (Member)]: Yes.
[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: Representative Olson? Yes. Representative Priestley? Yes. Representative White?
[Kirk White (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Representative Graning? Yes. Representative Markup?
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yes.
[Unidentified Committee Member]: I can't forget to email my
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I was gonna say, forget to let my I
[Unidentified Committee Member]: know not.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Okay. Do you want to ask people open? Okay. We could send vice chair k. We're doing well.
[Rick Steele (Legislative Counsel)]: It's gonna
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: go high. I
[Monique Priestley (Clerk)]: was the same way. Way to we're chase.
[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Next on the list is page two eleven. We have that set for 02:45. So we'll break now until 02:45. Think be here promptly. The sooner we deal with it, the sooner you get to go home. But don't I'm not I wanna make sure that we're still doing our due diligence, that we're listening. We have witnesses coming in. We're not going to speed this thing up just to get us out of here. We'll continue to ask questions, we all need to get to a place where where we're comfortable with the bill if we if we can get there. So with that,