New Technologies

State legislatures, local jurisdictions, and courts across the country have reacted in different manners to the rise of new technologies and increased opportunities for people to provide goods and services. Policies will fail to serve constituents if they are not informed by the companies that are expected to implement them, are overly sweeping, or rooted in misperceptions. Any new legal or regulatory requirements should be tailored to the product and associated industry, directly tied to an identified harm, limited to gaps in existing coverage, focused on bad actors, and narrowly tailored to avoid conflicts or discrepancies in the law and unintended consequences. One-size-fits-all approaches must be avoided given the variety of industries, different technology models, and varied reasons why people seek or provide services. In addition, corresponding rules and regulations that apply to legacy providers should be adjusted accordingly to allow for technological neutrality. TechNet promotes policies that encourage the development of entrepreneurship, mobile commerce, and the next wave of innovation in the economy. Establishing an innovation-friendly policy framework is the key to the competitiveness of the technology industry. The state program supports the following principles: 

Reasonable Statutory and Regulatory Framework

New technologies bring new products and services to the market. Occasionally, these new products and services generate significant policymaker interest because of transformative features with little precedent and high consumer interface. Autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, blockchain, digital assets, and self-service healthcare, including telehealth, and digital-forward pharmacy, are examples.

While some lawmaking may be needed or helpful, TechNet will be vigilant against vague, overbroad, unnecessary, harmful, or hostile laws and regulations that stifle innovation. Generally speaking, TechNet is supportive of efforts to modernize legal frameworks that aim to sensibly regulate novel products and services if they:

• Seek to encourage, enable, and advance American leadership in innovation.
• Support the underlying and future innovation inherent in the product or service.
• Focus on prohibiting negligent, reckless, or criminal conduct and on the actors rather than the technology.
• Avoid duplicating existing requirements and creating unclear overlap or conflicts with existing requirements, particularly where there are uniform federal regulations.
• Encourage a deliberate exploration of regulatory and non-regulatory approaches with a preference towards non-regulatory approaches unless there are high-risk outcomes that warrant more direct government approaches.
• Support an expeditious regulatory process to align with the speed of developing technologies.
• Recognize the benefits of the new technology.
• Continue to provide safeguards against intermediary liability, including opposing the application of strict liability onto online marketplaces.
• Recognize the ability for internet platforms to keep their users safe online by moderating content without creating liability risks.

Patient Access to Health Care

Telehealth is fundamentally altering how patients experience care. New telecommunications technologies allow health care professionals to provide patients with medical care and services in convenient, affordable, and accessible ways and enable health care providers to deliver and coordinate health care safely and at a high quality.

TechNet supports the following principles:

• Statutes should affirmatively enable the use of technology to treat patients remotely and ensure that the clinician-patient relationship can be established using technology. Prescribing must also be allowed using technology. States may allow for the prescription of controlled substances using technology in line with federal standards.
• Telehealth statutes should be technology-neutral, enabling innovation by allowing the use of both synchronous and asynchronous technologies. Regulation should focus on clinical outcomes and risk, rather than specific communication methods or legacy infrastructure.
• The use of “store and forward,” text messaging, remote patient monitoring, and other SMS technology should be allowed as clinically appropriate.
• Photography used to assist in the practice of telehealth should not require professional licensure.
• A health care clinician may provide a professional second opinion to a patient as long as the clinician is licensed or registered and in good standing in their resident state, provided that the physician is not involved in the treatment of the patient in the state where he/she is not licensed.
• States should adopt licensure compacts to facilitate patient choice and access and streamline clinician licensing.
• Emerging health technologies hold enormous potential to extend human healthspan and longevity. Public policy should reflect an expanded view of healthcare, not simply as reactive treatment, but as a technology-enabled system that promotes better long-term health outcomes for society.
• Policymakers should avoid new restrictions that complicate and increase the cost of investment in innovative healthcare models that support better access to care, such as telehealth platforms.

Uncrewed Aircraft Systems

Commercial drone operations are already providing essential services to the American public and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is developing a regulatory framework to further unlock operations that will provide workforce, economic, and environmental benefits to the communities where they operate. TechNet supports the following principles:

• The Federal Aviation Administration has exclusive authority to regulate aviation safety and use of the airspace by aircraft in the United States. State-by-state airspace laws will create a web of complex and confusing regulations that jeopardize safety for all airspace users and place unnecessary burdens on companies engaging in a new industry and place unnecessary burdens on companies engaging in a new industry.
• There are existing state and local laws that establish privacy protections, prohibit voyeurism, and forbid nuisances that apply to drone operations. Drone-specific legislation to provide further protection is unnecessary and onerous.
• TechNet supports policies that promote the responsible development and expansion of commercial drone operations to deliver economic, environmental, and social benefits to communities. 

Personal Delivery Devices

Personal delivery devices (PDDs) are an emerging technology that helps cities heavily reduce traffic congestion, lower emissions, and promote overall pedestrian safety. Through streamlined last-mile delivery, PDDs can help enhance urban mobility all while creating greater economic efficiencies that support small businesses. As PDD capabilities rapidly advance, TechNet supports state-level policies that foster safe, responsible, and efficient deployment while avoiding unnecessary barriers that could hinder innovation or the realization of these benefits. The state program supports the following principles:

• States should empower local governments to make self-determinations on permit processes, boundaries, fleet size, and regulatory frameworks for the public right of way.
• State policy should recognize the value of PDDs as job creators and economic drivers, supporting both public and private investment in infrastructure and the broader technology ecosystem.
• Policies must be technology-neutral and business model-neutral, supporting continued progress in autonomous delivery while avoiding measures that unfairly privilege or disadvantage specific types of PDDs or operators.
• Similar to autonomous vehicles, a human operator should not be required to pilot a PDD. Policymakers should support policies that are technology agnostic to avoid slowing innovations in autonomy.
• Policies should avoid drawing distinctions between PDDs and comparable delivery vehicles unless there is a specific, articulated public interest that justifies differential treatment.

Access to Markets  

While policymakers must balance new innovations with consumer protection, TechNet opposes regulatory restrictions imposed to protect existing markets from competition, such as excessive insurance requirements, prohibitive licensing requirements, caps on the number of services provided, limitations on where services can be provided, and unreasonable barriers to market entry.

TechNet supports legislation to protect consumers when it is based on an identifiable harm that has occurred or could occur. TechNet opposes legislation that regulates specific technologies based on unknown impacts to a consumer. In circumstances where policymakers have identified a significant threat or occurrence of harm that is not already prohibited or otherwise addressed by existing law or regulation, the cost, difficulty, and practicality of implementing new rules and regulations should be analyzed against the magnitude and probability of potential harm. Further, policymakers should note the difficulties inherent in state or local regulation of companies and products that are multi-state or global in operations, including the interplay of other state or federal legal requirements.

TechNet supports efforts to increase access to capital, including intrastate crowdsourcing and other cutting-edge funding mechanisms.

Service Fee Regulations

TechNet opposes regulations that aim to cap or otherwise control technology companies’ ability to price their own goods and services in line with their business models and consistent with freedom of contract principles. Technology companies’ fees enable them to facilitate essential services and may need to vary between trips and markets or different product offerings or marketplace dynamics. They cover a range of services that promote safety and reliability, including the cost of building and maintaining technology interfaces, insurance, payment facilitation fees, technical assistance, security, onboarding and background checks for workers, marketing, or customer support, among other things. Specifically for digital platforms, regulating companies’ service fees or mandating reporting requirements does not protect worker earnings or consumer affordability. Rather, it does the opposite, creating pressure to move costs like insurance and credit card processing fees onto consumers, thereby decreasing sales volume and adversely affecting worker pay. Further, regulating companies’ service fees risks negatively impacting the level, pricing, and quality of the services provided.