The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would throw out Supreme Court rules that limit patents on abstract ideas. If PERA passes, it will open the floodgates for far more vague and overbroad software patents. It will even allow for patents on human genes.
No one should be allowed to take an abstract idea, add generic computer language, and get a patent. And we should never see patents on human genetic material itself. But if PERA passes, that’s exactly what will happen.
The Senate Commerce Committee is considering a bill that, in the name of children’s privacy, creates a system of private surveillance that would force platforms to collect more information on every user, further invading their privacy in the process. The “Kids Online Safety Act” (KOSA) would make platforms the arbiter of what children see online and could hand over significant power, and private data, to third-party identity verification companies like Clear or ID.me.
Lawmakers should be providing real privacy protections for everyone online. KOSA doesn’t do that. Instead, KOSA would likely require everything from Apple’s iMessage, Signal, web browsers, email applications, VPN software, and platforms like Facebook and TikTok to collect more user data. Perhaps even worse, the bill would allow individual state attorneys general to decide what topics pose a risk to the physical and mental health of a minor, and allow them to force online services to remove and block access to that material everywhere, by default. This isn’t safety—it’s censorship.
New Yorkers, we need you to speak up today to expand your digital rights. Tell Governor Hochul to support A7006-B (Fahy), which would make it easier to repair phones, tablets and other digital electronic equipment, and make these repairs more accessible for all New Yorkers.
