In an op-ed, Joe Biden asks Republicans and Democrats to unite “to pass strong bipartisan legislation to hold Big Tech accountable”, saying the risks are clear
especially our kids' data. We need a Data Protection Agency to protect our privacy and hold Big Tech accountable. https://www.wsj.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Federal privacy legislation has been building as a cross-industry ask since Tim Cook's data-broker clearinghouse op-ed in 2019, and Biden has carried it onto the annual stage — first with the 2022 State of the Union child-safety push, now with this op-ed, written shortly after Democrats urged him to act before Republicans could retake Congress. Weeks later he repeated the demand at the 2023 State of the Union.
The new element here is institutional: not just rules but a proposed Data Protection Agency, pitched as bipartisan at the exact moment congressional negotiators were already drafting limits on how tech giants collect, store, and use personal information.
First-order effects
- Big Tech platforms now face a sitting president naming kids' data and targeted advertising as the clear risk, raising the political price of opposing child-safety provisions specifically.
- The Data Protection Agency proposal forces lawmakers to take a position on regulatory structure — a new dedicated regulator — not merely on the rules themselves.
Second-order effects
- Republicans bring their own grievance to the table — they previously sued Google alleging bias in Gmail's spam filter — so bipartisan traction likely depends on packaging privacy limits alongside content-bias provisions.
- The ongoing congressional negotiations over collection, storage, and use limits (the Clarity Act track) must now reconcile with the DPA idea, shaping which bill becomes the actual legislative vehicle.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, US privacy oversight consolidates from FTC enforcement into a dedicated agency, turning platform data practices into a standing compliance function rather than a case-by-case legal risk.
- Child-safety measures — banning targeted ads to and data collection of minors — are the likeliest consensus wedge, meaning targeted advertising's business model narrows first at the under-18 edge even if a full agency stalls.
The trend: US tech accountability is converging on a dedicated federal privacy regulator, with children's data serving as the bipartisan entry point.