Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We're live.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Okay. We are live. Senate Education Committee, afternoon of April 8. We are taking up for the first time, age six fifty, and we are doing what has become norm in this committee, the walk through before the introduction. Right. It's way who says we have

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: to go ahead and what

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: else does it for sure?

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: I know. Maybe we're doing it the right way.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Yeah. That's right. So

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And we have Rick Wicks in

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: the hall of us counsel, and we are ready.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: The floor is yours. Okay. Rick Siegel with the Office of Legislative Counsel. So h six fifty, I'll give a little bit of background. The bill, as it was introduced, was a much more comprehensive ed tech bill.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It would have required not just registration of ed tech, but also regulation. The agency of education would have had to certify these products before schools could use them. So AOB came in and said this is maybe, could the car rip off horse,

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: maybe for What does it even mean, certifying these products?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, maybe I should talk more about EdTech in general. And Edie, Greg Granny can explain that as well, but And we have definitions here, but And maybe let's just do that. And then as we get to the definitions, it might make more sense. So page one, there is a, before it gets to the ed tech section, there is a a tech correction that I have in several bills because it's gotta get somewhere. I really want it to pass. It's it's an enforcement provision in title nine, which is the commerce and trade provision. And this is a different section about student privacy that the assembly passed several years ago. And the it's a correction because I explained this actually in, senate and I was a little bit earlier today is the current warning chapter is incorrect. It should be subchapter that would make the entire chapter subject to enforcement. So correcting that mistake, in my opinion, and then adding rulemaking was also, in my opinion, left out, should have been given to the EHE in that section as well. So that's not related to EdTech, but it's in the same title, same chapter, so I thought I'd go ahead and fix it there. Okay. On line 17, you have a new subchapter, Educational Technology. And so this is in Title IX instead of Title XVI because it is a regulation of a business of commerce, and this is Title IX, is our commerce title and our statutes. So Section 2444A, Registration Requirements, is the definition section. Definition of educational technology product and product means any student faces software, application, or platform that may collect, process, or, on the second page, transmit student data, and that is used for teaching and learning purposes in a school in Levant. Fairly broad definition, it's any student based software, so not software that a teacher exclusively uses, has to be student software that is used for teaching and learning purposes. Number two, filing, is any type of, really, registration amendment report that a business does with the Secretary of State. When you register a business, that's a filing. When you file your periodic periodic report, that's a filing. This will make more sense as I get to the bills. Number three, provider of an education technology product and provider, meaning a person that provides educational technologies product that is in use at a school with or without a contract with a school or a school district. So without a contract, we would kind of loop in these free freeware, gaming software that school students may use. So can we go back to page one one? It's not in line 20. So what's really going on here?

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: This is this so this is we wanna know we want this product to be approved, or if it collects data from students. Is that the issue? Not specifically that it's gonna

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: be part of it. I think the primary and regulatory committee speaks of the purpose of it better than I can, but I believe the intent here is to get a kind of picture landscape of what's happening in schools when it comes to EdTech, what they're using, and yes, eventually, that software, is it is it taking students' data? Is it being sold? Are they being tracked? Are they being whatever. Right? There's this whole other data privacy component that's not directly in the middle, but it's the start of that process. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And as introduced, would have been much more regulatory. This is not as regulatory You had it on the Senate floor, you had the franchise bill today. Yeah. That's senator Maddow. Similar idea, where initially when it was introduced, the that bill, which I also worked on, was very much heavily regulation of franchisers and franchisors. That was tripped down to be basically just like, are you a franchiser? Yes or no? To begin the conversation in later years. Okay, so on page two, definition of school is a public or independent school approved by 16 DSA one hundred sixty six. Alright. B, mandatory data reporting. So in addition to all the requirements of a person registering with the Secretary of State pursuant to State law, so usually this would be a business that it registers LLC or a foreign entity doing business here. A person doing business in the state as a provider of education technology products shall, at the time of a filing, provide the following: the name, primary physical email internet address of the person a link to the most recent version of the privacy policy and terms and conditions that we've provided in use the name of each school or school district in which the provider is operating or due to a contract, the name and every description of each product of the provider also indicate which products are offered at no cost, which products are known to be used in any school or school district, and then finally, an attestation that each product needs the student privacy subchapter, which is I can go over that next time if you want details, but that's kinda targeted advertising towards students, which is already in Vermont law, and the age appropriate design code act, which was passed last year in Vermont, and all other federal and state privacy laws that they imply. So this is when they register, or when they file a report, they would need to collect that information to give the state an idea of what's going on with it. So that's what's going in statute. Section two is the study of this kind of more intensive certification process. So AOB is given a task, and they're to consult with the Secretary of State because, remember, the Secretary of State is gonna have all that registration information about these EdTech products. They're gonna consult with schools and create a list of EdTech products in use across the state. Then they'll cross reference those two lists to make sure that there's no missing pieces as far as any companies who haven't registered, but that aren't doing business in the state. And if there are these missing pieces, forward those names to the AG. Page four, determine where assistive technology may be included in an individualized education plan. Provide a recommendation as to how the state should certify EdTech products for use in schools. This is the big one here. Which state entities should be involved in the certification process and what extent? The criteria to be considered in the certification process, which at the minimum shall include the product's compliance with state curriculum standards, advantages of using the product compared with non digital methods, whether it was designed for educational use, and then some of the design features of the product, which are more sensitive information of students, geolocation tracking, you know, where they are, use of AI, which includes chatbots, synthetic content, and automated decision making tools, targeted advertising, personalized recommendation systems, so like an algorithm, access to adults, unknown to the students, and features that would lead to compulsive use of the prospect. Page five, whether the product serves as a beneficial assistive technology or provides some other form of benefits for special education purposes, and the data privacy practices of the provider of the product. Okay, so finishing up the certification, preview, the timeline and estimated cost to establish and implement the certification process, the cost or cost savings for schools, assuming that a certification process is established, and whether any third party services, including Internet safety labs, should be utilized to assist in certification. The agency would also provide the General Assembly with any other information and teams relevant to help ensure that EdTech products are safely and smart of using our botchicals. So that report will be due on or before 11/15/2027, your committee is included, as well as the Economic Development Committees and the House Education Committee. And the effective date would be 07/01/2026, which I actually wanna check with the Secretary of State about if they can make that timeline work. As far as the registration component, they would have to update their When you go to the website and you start a business, that's all kind of template, and you type in the information, so this is kind of new data that they may wanna have a bit more time to get that sorted out, So it's something to think about.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Go ahead. Is there currently a list of tech, pools that are authorized in the state?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So there's not really AOE does have an ed tech, I call it division, but they do have an employee that is over that area. To my knowledge, there's not like an official list of approved ed tech products, so it's kind of school by school, perhaps school district by school. Make a teacher by teacher how this is done.

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: So at the current moment, we don't have any law or standard that schools must follow when it comes to, as a teacher, can bring in, Hey, I think this is a great learning tool, and just bring it in. That's what I understand. Okay,

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: so page four, line seven starts with this paragraph b about criteria for certification process, and it goes down to, you know, sensory listing you know, at a minimum. And then it goes down to design features, etcetera. In here, although, line 10 kinda gets at it, I think the fundamental question is should be asked, what's the benefit to education? Like, point blank. Not how it compares to digital, non digital, but really what's the benefit to the education system, you know, from whatever, 10,000 foot view as opposed to getting right into the details of privacy and. But, you know, I think the the key issue is is it relevant to Vermont students and and and why? Yes. So this creates a permission based system for the AOE?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, no, this would this would, require AOE to come back to you all and say, this is what we recommend to you. We recommend or maybe they say we don't recommend it. They could come back and say, we don't think this is gonna work. That it should be up to the schools or should be up to the school districts. So it would be up to them to come back to you all and kind of provide a recommendation.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So who who has the rulemaking authority?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right now, nobody. It's because there's no there's no Not

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: in the bill. Nobody's recommended? Because

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: there's no there's no underlying Sorry.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Well, there is a new consumer protection. Is that right?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, so this is a previous subchapter. This is a technical, ensuring that this student privacy, which is separate from this subchapter

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is just because that's why I had that correction here. It's to make sure we're not giving the entire chapter under the Consumer Protection Act. So yeah, this is where the subchapter B, EdTech, is a separate entity. So I guess maybe it's important to think what this bill does. It requires when you register in Vermont to do business here, which you have to do. You are a business even if you're incorporated in Delaware and you're located in Texas, however you're set up, if you do business in Vermont, you're supposed to register as a foreign entity, if you're at least. So when you do that, if you're x x x that's a horrible acronym. ABC as that company, you have to register and you would put ABC EdTech Company, and then you would fill in this information. You would not be regulated in any other way until there's this kind of certification process.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I'm not saying I disagree, but are you saying that every app that people use in Vermont is registered in the state?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: If it's a business that has consumers and if they are if they are doing business in the state.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So Resy has like a registration in Vermont?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I can't say they do or don't, but if I'm a lawyer advising a business and you have customers in a state, you should be registered as an out of state jurisdiction in the state in order to so the state knows who you are, so you have an agent that you can be served with if you're sued.

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: Beatrice, I think you'd

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: find they probably do. That's a

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: big Well, no. I mean, is this a is this a Department of Financial Regulation question? Like

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Secretary of state.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Secretary of state. All the corporate filings are secretary of state. So someone would look first with the Secretary of State if they were filed, and then they would be able to say, Oh, I don't see them in the corporate filings registry. If they have a complaint, I think the complaint, not just about the filing, but about some illegal activity where it will go to DFR. I don't know where that would or the AG.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So it would be a complaint about like EdTech specifically or some other problem with a

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Well, I just don't know that we've said before that a technology product means any okay. Any student facing application. That's every single application under the sun.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, then, Rutland, there's the Yeah. Last part is also important. The which part? So the entire sentence is, may collect, process, or transmit student data, and that is used for teaching and learning purpose in a school in Vermont.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: That may collect that if that

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: is used for teaching and learning purposes in a school.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It's still pretty broad definition. I found out, like, my stepdad sent me, like, a new leadership quiz, and I was gonna send it out to, like, random colleagues. I'd be like, oh, you should take this. It's made by Vermonter. Should figure out what it's called. But if, like, if, like, if a student group was like, oh, you should you should take this quiz to understand, like, your leadership color style, you know, what happens then?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I guess the the the question is, does the definition need to be tightened up to not include these more informal uses of technology? To me, the intent, at least, is to capture what a teacher is using in his or her classroom, right? That we are gonna forward as an assignment that you must use this website to complete the assignment. Right? I think that's the intent.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Right. So this, I mean, this actually came up in a meeting I was in with members of the house where, you know, a CTE teacher said, oh, I'm using this app to help, I'm encouraging students to use this app to look at job opportunities. Is the teacher liable for something?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Not in this bill.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Then the company needs to make sure they are registered. Correct.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: And in order to be registered, they have to meet the fees? Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So, like, I know a lot of schools in my district use Google or Chromebooks. Is this gonna get to the point where they only decide what you use for? I know a lot of them get it, but I think they're donated.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: And by getting that donation, they get other software Right. Applications. It's gonna narrow down the competition a little bit as far as what say, oh, he says, This is what we want you to use for electronic devices in the street?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: AOE does this study, right? They do the study and they could say, we break it's up to you all, right, to determine how this looks. They could say, we recommend that you certify EdTechProducts for use in schools, and that we be a part of it, or that we consulted. However, they recommended, but with you all, I think that they are gonna structure this in statute, for example, that you actually come up with a way so it could, eventually, yes. You could say that products that meet this definition of ed tech have to be certified, and that could narrow down the field, right? If these products are selling student data, like if they're doing things you don't like, then they may not be allowed in schools. Because

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: this has turned it back to the kids code and everything else.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: They must attest that the products meet the standards of the Ferguson code. So if you're not quite yet regulating them, this I think it's, like, a first step, right, to doing that.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So is there anything in statute right now that limits how expansive the approval for rulemaking can be for this?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, I mean, again, there's no rulemaking. At this point, it's just a registration system where you have billing information. And if you don't, there's not really an enforcement in this piece. So the Secretary of State could say, hey. You're doing business. It's like any business. If you do business here and you're not registered, You're supposed to register with the state. I don't know what those penalties are, but there is a penalty. So that would be the enforcement as an underlying thing you already have in the state. Nothing new here.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: So is this all just coming back to

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: us in the form of

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: a report, or does the registration already take effect on its

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: own now? Registration has settled. That takes effect. Yeah. The study comes by.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Therapy?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No fee.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So it's free, it is free or the fee just wasn't paid?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: They would still pay for the filings, how much that money is to file as a parent entity.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Okay.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't know what that is.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: And so at this point, we're gonna have each month by overrepresented. See, I'll say, at this point, this doesn't impact what a school can do, it only impacts who can do business here and the

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: community. Yeah,

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: does require, requires. If you are providing and Center on this, they actually made a good point earlier, saying that how are they gonna know that they're doing business here? That is a question. Like, you're a tech provider and you make an app that's just on the App Store, do you know if Vermont School's using it? Well, know where your data's being used and you see where they're being downloaded, so they probably do know that we do have people in Vermont using our app.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I mean, reminds me of sports betting where we we had to I mean, we could then see that over 50% of the people using the app in our state were visitors. So, like, maybe every app maker at this level is very sophisticated and and knows what they're dealing with. But and I'm not saying, like, if five people are using it in the state, they're gonna get, you know, sued or enforced against. But I do feel like this opens up a huge new definition of what we mean by a student facing application.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Well, why don't we hear

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: from the sponsor? Gonna spy her out. Was just doing this for a little while.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: What's up to you? Our sponsor reporter is not sure. Both?

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: Both, yeah.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Two further. Hi, Dean Granny, Jericho in Underhill, and thank you for having the time today. I have you on my calendar for tomorrow, so I apologize. Was the invitation was sent for. So this is a fill that is designed to provide information for us. What we know is that education technology has grown in multiples to become a multi billion dollar industry in a very short amount of time. It was around before COVID, but once COVID hit and we went to online learning, it turned into something very different. It is fully unregulated. It is just like the supplement industry, where people can make assertions, they test their own equipment, they set up whatever information and marketing that they need to based on their own testing, and using our kids as that test market. So, because it is unregulated, because it is an industry that we know very little about, what we wanna do is set up a system that we can figure out what's happening in the state. And so we worked with the Secretary of State's office to say, can we have the business register that they have a amplified product? Right? So if you have an educational technology product that is being used in the state, do you have the ability to even register that so we know who's in the state? And because they have invested in upgrades, they can do that starting in January. So, that was a huge win, to even be able to understand what's happened. And then we talked to the Agency of Education and said, are you interested in helping us figure out what makes sense to even be used in our state, in our classrooms, based on what is trying to be taught, figuring out who can partner with to make sure that these products are doing what they say they're gonna do. They are very focused on data privacy right now, and there's a consortium of states that work together on this, and about two thirds of our schools are part of this consortium, one third roughly are not. But there is no and they have one person who is responsible for education technology in this state. And so the question for us then to them is, what would it take for you to be able to get that information back and figure out how to make sure these products are doing what they say, which ones should be allowed to be used in our schools. And that's what the report is. What would it cost? What kinds of partners would you need? Please get back with us. We know this is the very beginning. And so that's what this bill is. It's starting point for us to be able to, down the road, support, because right now it's costing so much money. Every single school is figuring this out in a different way, and they're all, not all, they're often coming to the same conclusion, but it's the most expensive way to do it because they have, every school has different groups of teachers and administrators working on what would work for you. So

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: when you say which products are approved, I mean, aren't there just, like isn't it just exploding? So how do you there's another one tomorrow, another one tomorrow. How do you so how do you keep up with it, and how does anybody make sense

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: of Yeah, and that's not something that the legislature really can do, right? But we need our agency, we need our agency of education to figure that out and to say, you know, maybe there's another multistate consortium that could help at least tell us which products are actually doing what they say they're doing, which ones are actually effective in helping kids to learn. Right now, they can say, like I said, whatever they want backed by whatever test they choose to do. So if somebody wanted to

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: introduce a product in Vermont, that would whereas today they could just do it, under this regimen, might take them six months to get for

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: No, under this bill, all they would have to do is register the same way they registered at the Secretary of State's office, and

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: that takes It's certified. Yeah. Okay.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: So they would have to know that we have state laws. That might take them a little bit longer. We found that there are a lot of places don't even know that we have state laws around how to, and they would, so that's one thing that

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: would be really important. How would the agency bill? Isn't a second part of this for the agency to approve? So that would take time, which might would be helpful.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: So that, yeah, so what we need is for them to tell us what it would cost to set up a system to figure that out, what would be approved. And so, until we have them do that research, we don't know. And so, all we're asking from them is a report, like, what would it cost? What kind of partners would you need? How would this go forward if we were to choose to regulate these entities in a different way, or to limit which ones can be used in our platforms. So this is a consumer protection bill.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Yeah, no, I get it all. So it's just We're just thinking about the bag, why it's kept changing every day and how do we have them keep up with it. But anyway, yeah.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So, I mean, I wanted to try and follow up, like, a case study and tell me what you think. So, I mean, I know a lot of high school and college professors who are trying to teach kids digital literacy around AI. Right? They may not condone the use of ChatGPT as a academic tool, but they want students to be literate in understanding where it can be helpful, how to how to make sure it's a tool and not replacing your thinking capacity. Right? So I just searched in the corporate filings page for the secretary of state's office, OpenAI. Right? I get OpenAI jujitsu, I get OpenAI Pet Repair, but I also get OpenAI LLC in San Francisco at the bottom, and it's the only one of the 12, you know, the other ones are local businesses, it's the only one that says status canceled. I don't know what that means, but tell me how would how would this bill treat ChatGPT or any teacher in high school who said, I want you all to understand what ChatGPT can and cannot do for you?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Yep. So ChatGPT is not a tool that is designed and used for learning specifically. So, it wouldn't even be part of this bill. Would be one of those things that is designed to teach, I don't know, spelling, or math, or, you know, something that is designed Rick,

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: that, do you because it says that is used for teaching and learning purposes in a school.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Again, first thing, the legislature council, looking at the definition on the bottom of page one, means any student facing software application or platform that may collect, process, or transmit student data. ChatGPT,

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: I think

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: could Student facing.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Student facing.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: That, say

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Which student facing software application or platform that may collect, process or transmit student data, and that is used for teaching and learning purposes. So you could argue that if a teacher had a lesson, this is what which I used to teach, I could imagine. I could imagine hearing that. So, yeah, I think maybe tying up that definition may be

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: more helpful. I know, I've heard of a teacher maybe through an intern of mine that and this was a high school. You know, write it yourself and then write it through ChatGPT to see the difference. Right? Like, I'm not saying ChatGPT shouldn't register, but, like, I don't think the definition is that clear about what it means to be student based. I'm sure a lot of students are thinking ChatGPT, and what it means then for a school or a teacher to potentially lose academic freedom or not be able to teach digital literacy?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Yeah, so there's nothing about the intent of the bill Right, that is supposed to

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: so We need to probably put intent language into statute that says this would not capture Because X, Y, Z. Yeah.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: And we wanna make sure that we're teaching kids how to be functioning adults in the current century.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Right? Yes. We do. And so that's super important to Yeah. For so if you I teach. So, I mean, I'm it's a Yeah. University level, so I don't think this is all

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Right. Does it qualify that to college? This is

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I wanna make sure we're talking to teachers. Do they feel like they they're not liable for anything here, but would their freedom to teach using different tools be dampened? So that

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: would depend on what the agency of education eventually, right, comes up with. Because this, first we need them to report on what would it cost for them to be able to put any kind of system in place that lets us know what products are effective for which ages and which ones are not.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I thought we were asking businesses to register it. Yeah. So how do they know they're a education business?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: If they're so this is is their product designed to help students learn anything?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So if anybody That's not what

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: it it doesn't say it says used for teaching and learning, not designed to teach and learn.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Well, used for, yeah. But I mean, they're It's not often that a product is gonna be used for teaching and learning, right? Used in a classroom for teaching and learning, that isn't designed for that purpose. I

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: mean, this is why it's in the education city though, because I think that does happen fairly frequently. If you're if you're doing anything related to current events or, you know, that that you use a lot of tools that aren't like web, whatever, the Blackboard or, you know, the tools that are designed for schools.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: In high school and middle school and elementary school. Yeah. Yeah. Because you

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I mean, most teachers that make students come alive are are trying to teach them using current relevant tools and how to make sense of the world.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: You probably need a different person in this chair to talk about that.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: So senator Woods let senator Woods jump in.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So if any any student has access to the Internet, they can use chat in school. So are we talking about policy that's gonna limit schools from students getting access? Would it be through the school server that they would have to?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Yeah, this bill requires those entities that are used for educational purposes to register at the Secretary of Service Office. That's all this bill does. And then it asks the Agency of Education to come back to us with suggestions on what the next steps would be, and what the cost to implement those next steps would be.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Unless we

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: want turn the new policy. Basic. We don't have the tools yet. We don't have and it's too new of an industry, but we know that our kids are the guinea pigs in these test products, the test for these products today.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Right. So just to make sure, because there is a I can see the the point can be made here of the distinction. I think your intent is for your two products that are designed to Thanks to use that set design and design for the work, but the intent is designed for you in schools.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Intent is to make sure that the students in our state are not being used as yeah. Give me a fix. Yeah. Okay. So Okay.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So I was trying to save it with page two where it says provider of an educational technology product, a person that provides an educational technology product and use at a school. And then this is the problem because I was going to say the way to fix this would be to say they have a contract with the school district, but it says with or without a contract with the school district. That continues to be extremely broad. So what was the intention with trying to include a technology product and use at a school without a contract with the school district? That's like the Internet. That's everything. It's their free products.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Okay. And what the way they make money is by collecting and selling.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: But don't they still

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: have a contract at the school? They don't have to.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Okay. I mean, we we could say if you're a school, you need to have a contract for things that are

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: It's been a problem.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: I don't know how we do it. It's been But it's about

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: far down the road. Yeah. Right? We don't even know the number of products that are being used in the state.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: This is

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: the first the first step.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Just to get people to register so we know what they're using and to not register, they can't

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: use it. Just another state happens. Not yet.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Nope. It's actually being used as a model policy in a number of other states right now.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: It needs to be a good model then. It needs some definitions that work.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Well, we're certain Well, but the registration piece has some pretty good definitions, and if there are ways to tweak it to make it better, then absolutely you should do that. But that's that's the consumer protection piece, right? That's the how do we make sure that businesses that want to do business in the state of Vermont register appropriately and follow our rules?

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: So just to pull apart a little bit more, is it that we don't want our kids used as guinea pigs or is it that we want to protect their data?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Is it both? Both?

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Because

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: We have logs.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: There are circumstances under which the cancers are getting big, light enough to be a bad thing. Perhaps. I mean, don't know.

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: But you should know that you are

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: being used to Yeah, you at least want to know everything, that's fair enough.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: But you should choose, right? You should choose to say, yes, I want to test this I want to be a beta tester. And you should have certain protections as, you know, part of being that beta tester. But

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: protections in here? Would they interfere with the school deciding under those circumstances where it was disclosed and knew what they were doing to make that decision or would you see

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: You're asking today or down the road? I I don't know.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: I don't know. It's a good question. I don't know. Yeah. Is it is it the agency, the school, or individual kids?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: I mean, it it is such a new industry right now. I mean, it's, you know, it's really taken off in the last five years. Yeah. So we're at a point where we can make an impact, but until we know who is even acting in the state, right, that's really the first step, and we're really fortunate to have the Secretary of State's office be in a position where they can register to the product's level. We do want But they weren't able to do that. They won't they aren't able to do that actually today, but they will be able to do that by January.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: But I I do wanna clarify that kids code right now would stop any platform operating on the date from collecting and selling children's data?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'll I'll I'll chime in. Maybe. So Kids Code takes effect 01/01/2027. The AGs do rule making as well to kind of beef up how that actually works in reality. So it's true, but they would have to be a covered business. And is this EdTech provider a quote unquote covered business under the Kid Code law that would be up to each business if they meet the definition of a covered business. So, if they do meet the definition, then yes, they'd be prohibited from a number of things, including selling

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: So, in the name of a

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that's why in the bill, they had to attest to adhering to KITS code, but it's not any regulation. It's saying that, look, we have this. It's actually more of this law's on the books. You should be aware of it. Make sure you follow this law that already exists. That's my answer is in defense on these businesses.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It's the first step that you opened Pandora's Box.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Well, I think the Box is already open. I think it's opening our eyes to Pandora's Box. Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Seems like a huge effort. I don't understand this is silly, but the first testimony ought to be the kids go to forward address the fundamental impact, negative impact, concerned about. Because if AOE, it's got to sell them all and be evaluating software on a daily basis to see if to kinda carry the leading edge of technology as it expands. Just seems like a huge effort, you know, but I'm curious if we've already covered it with kids.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Two things, right? So there are, there is at least one nonprofit that is not funded by Big Tech that is looking at evaluating products and how they are, how at least at a minimum, their privacy settings work and the data collection works. So the agency wouldn't have to do this on their own. They there are our partners that they would have to work, they could work with in that situation.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Right. Well, that's all funding and it's all about funding, really. Know, it's that's labor where we have to fund that labor. We don't get anything. Regardless of a non profit's Yeah. We mean work with the dependencies.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Yeah. But also, this would explicitly say, if you're an education product provider, right, you're an education technology That's provider, have to

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: fuzzy, but it'd be very tough to nail down. I'm just curious if this is even necessary giving kids coverage. I think that's a good story. If we're already covered, if kids are covered and kids using software which you know their teachers might advocate, should we all still be covered? Sure.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: So there there is another question, which is, and this is when you have secretary, won't have secretary seat on, maybe you will have secretary seat on how you do that. If they can, in their new system that is online short, have different fee structure for education products, and that can help fund enforcement, that will be really beneficial with these laws, because we want kids code and other protections for kids to be funded and enforced well. And so again, this is that first step in having the businesses register at the Secretary of State's office.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Yes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So if if either guidance counselors or mental health counselors use apps for, you know, job search or career tech, you know, exploration or even mental health, is that covered in your definition?

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: It shouldn't. It's yeah. It shouldn't be. Looking for a job, shouldn't it be? No. It shouldn't be. Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Why is he not doing that at school?

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: He they are doing it at school. They it's facing students, and it's happening at school.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Oh, and I'll back to the cell phone if I may.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Yeah. And let me let me ask Rick a question

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: before he

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: goes because I don't

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: have to read it right now. But

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: I have to go work. So how

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: hard is it to sort of do it? I would be literally side by side, but effectively a side by side with with against code. Sure. Just to get a sense of where there is and is a total lapse. I I think it's both, perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. But let's find out where that is.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Have to do that with the committee. Okay. And also understanding that the AG's gonna have more information, rule making. They're getting a lot of authority over that. So but I'll provide you with the statutory parasite options just to answer.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Totally. It's where this the obvious question is where it's already over that. Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Can I ask about one more overlap? So yeah. So just gotta go. Yeah. They because it says collect, process, or transmit student data. Her kid's code and the data broker language, I I'm sure we'd want to know that anyone who processes student data is registered.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: And I don't know if they'd all be considered data brokers.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, because they're a first party interaction, they would not be a data broker. It'd be that company then sold it to another Mhmm. That we're not aware of behind the scenes, they would be the data brokers. So that first party interaction with you and Canvas, Blackboard, you're they're not a data broker. They are a first party business that you're dealing with.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: But they should be telling us right now if that data is being sold to somebody else per other laws?

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: For my laws? Not yet.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: If they're under 18. For

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: kids code, yeah, kids code January, but for adults, there's no other data.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: Oh, I'm talking about kids because it's about Yeah, January 1. So everyone who collects, processes, or transmits student data to be sold or sells it in any way.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Prohibited, I will double

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: check. It's prohibited.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I but I will double check for you. Yes.

[Sen. Thomas Chittenden (Member)]: So they'd so they would only be able this bill would still only mean they could do it if they were transmitting it or holding on to it for something that was had no monetary gain.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Exactly.

[Rick Siegel, Office of Legislative Counsel]: In in this bill? Yeah. In the registration bill? It would just be, do you do this? You do you do you use your third party processing, which would be allowed under KidsCode. Right? Do you have a third party that processed your information? Not sell it. Right? You have the processor because it's pretty technical here, but they would be able to do that with KidsCode. They would not be able to share it with a third party for another nefarious reason, if that makes sense. For monetary. Monetary advertising would occur. Yeah. I think it will help to have that kids code comparison for me too, so we

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: can all look at it and kind

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: of see. Then we go back through the bill with the book that we're here today go line by line. Yeah. I think I I think I get what what you're looking to do.

[Committee Member (Unknown)]: Thank you. Thanks.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: Thank you.

[Bill Sponsor (Unknown) from Jericho and Underhill]: Alright. Yeah. Apologize. I was here earlier. I'll take out my calendar for That's okay.

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: That's okay. It's time for So we actually have we'll take a fifteen minute break, but what it's worth, at more lunch, I put yellow highlight on our bills that are well, I should pay attention to the works that are kind of active. That were the cable release from the housing only one that's not there because it doesn't have any place to have it is the accident bridge ball bill. And on that score the house is supposedly voting that bill out of ways of means this week so that could become actually our vehicle So but we'll keep working. We'll keep working. So that just so you know, so if you're looking through, those are our active bills. And we got one off agents by sending over the.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So

[Committee Chair (Unknown name)]: we can go off for for fifteen minutes.