Joe Biden has spoken out in favor of a privacy regulation similar to the European GDPR

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, has announced that he wants to regulate large tech platforms, in order to protect user privacy in a similar way to what the EU did with its GDPR. Biden addressed the issue in his State of the Union Address, an annual solemn event in which the President addresses members of Congress, meeting in united sections.

Biden explained that he believes that a law that limits the profiling capabilities of large tech companies, especially when it comes to the data of minors and children, could gain the support of both parties. The President then urged members of Congress to find an agreement that unites both sides.

The speech was heavily cited by the media and privacy activists , who recalled how the topic of privacy has, to date, been virtually absent from all the speeches on the state of the union by Biden’s predecessors. Donald Trump has never even mentioned the word privacy in any of his speeches, while Barack Obama did it only once, in 2014.

For this reason, the speech was interpreted as an important signal of American discontent with social media profiling policies. The United States could intervene with a major reform, similar to the one approved by the EU, which places limits on the profiling capacity of companies, with particular regard to the protection of the right to privacy of minors.