Advanced Communications and Information Technology - House

and I'm gonna go ahead and take them to the table we have just two bills today now handed over to our vice chair. Thank you Sir. Please state your name for the record. Representative makes you're recognized to present your amendment all right also colleagues are gonna be starting with house bill of thirteen sixty nine it does have an amendment and once the staff gets that passed out my bill my amendment and so I'm gonna make a motion do pass on the amendment at the appropriate time and then when it gets engrossed all will explain the of the bill as a whole if the Committee is good with that. I see no questions what's will the committee. Motion is recognized but I make a motion to pass on the amendment. Any discussion. All those in favor say aye. Opposed. Graduations amendments been adopted you're recognized present your bill hi thank you colleagues so what house bill thirteen sixty nine does it hopefully this is a little bill that doesn't do much because I hope that most of the public entities are already doing this but what this does is it requires the public entities to create a technology use policy the the first of two things that Dotson on the technology use policy it just clears out our it just sets out in a clear policy what the approved use of technology is provided to the two employees of the various entities to make sure that at me if you read in the bill that they're not doing anything illegal or anything that they shouldn't be doing what the technology on the clock the second part and probably the the more important part of the test of the two is it requires each public entity to develop a cyber policy the Now this session we're putting together a package of cyber bills this is one piece of it our hope is to create a cyber standard that will be used across the state and instead of everybody kind of doing their own things we want to make sure we have one cohesive minimum standard that's being used across the state and then this minimum standard would then give legislative audit something to audit against to make sure that standard is being adhered to the standards are generally gonna be based upon the nests standards that's the national organization that develops the standards for Public and private entities across the country in the goal here is. You know bad guys only got to get right once we've got to get it right every time and in order to make sure that we're all acting on the same page instead of everybody kind of doing their own thing this bill is to try to create that cohesive of minimum standards for everybody to follow and if anybody on the committee has any questions on that we do have experts from the I. us here who can kind of help answer those questions and with that all will be able to open any questions anybody has representative occuring as for questions thank you Mr chairman of couple questions now the the amendment is part of this bill first why are we taking the game and fish commission higher at off of this to you know if we're trying to across the board with everybody why are we deleting line four and and excluding game and fish and the higher education so that's actually higher at fault don't pick on just a little bit now so the way the bill was originally drafted is the institutions of higher ed were put under the department of education and so the idea was what I want to do what I want to happen is the department of education to create a kind of a a minimum policy distribute that to all the school districts all the school district for Connor working off the slate same playbook if the local district and wants to build on top of it they can but at least have minimum standards well the way the bill was originally drafted higher education was included in that and of course higher education is a slightly different animal than public schools so what this does is that what that that's actually adding public education in so that they're developing their own set of standards independent of hi read so so we're not taking them out or actually that's putting them in allowing them to do the wrong follows. Follow up. on page five when you delete a line twenty six is is to be deemed open public records under the freedom information information act Are we giving the entire policy open record because all of my my one concern would be if we're creating a cyber security policy to keep the bad guys out but yet we're telling we're we're having an open records so that the bad guys can see what we're doing that and seem like a whole lot of sense I I completely agree so if you look at the the amendment so we're we're still exempting the the cyber policies but what we've added is that there's any disciplinary what we're adding this section underneath it because there's going to be a the public entities will be creating a disciplinary policy provide elation of this section and as part of that we did not want to violate whistle blower or the political freedom act and so what we're essentially doing is we're or not getting rid of that protection or adding the disciplinary to make sure that employee communications are not that fall under the was a blower or political freedom are not compromised. So part of the bill. says that one of the The technology for policies that the they need to come up with the side saying you know what to you you know they can't do we legally can't do online gaming they can't do this one of the things the bill also stipulates in the policy is that they and that a public employee can't blobby personal political opinions while they're on the clock so in other words state employee shouldn't use their state provided email address on the clock to lobby US on a you know an abortion bill or to lobby us on you know a lot or whatever that should not be done if they want on their personal time that's great. But while we're setting that out we also want to make sure that if they are contacting us under a whistle blower circumstance that were not impeding on that so this just says that if they're contacting us. To do a whistle blower that's okay and that's what they have that's what the amendment is adding there so yes I agree or not taking away the exemption under the for a on the cyber. Any additional questions. Representative bill you're recognized. Thank you Mr we've got the Arkansas game and fish and institution of higher ed where does the highway department fall in here and that and that all the others all the other public entities will have to develop the technology inside a plan so this is if you look at you know on on the amendment R. is State Game houses so everything a through our is all the other state agencies okay I don't have the bill in front of me yeah so world so this is going to affect all state agencies okay great thank you Mr yes all the ideas we want everybody on cyber to be on the same page. The Committee any additional questions representative talk you're aghast sorry I'm not trying to Aston thank you Mr far far away from so going back to the elected officials not being able lobby on under a personal email now that the elected officials can it's the state employees of state employees can't okay I just want to clear that up because I know that like it cities and counties a lot of times they may not have like a assets Salim county dot Morgan may just be their personal that they use for officials on bills to be covered and all that okay right yeah if if it's a personal email address it's not it doesn't count if it's only if it's a state employee state provided equipment state time they shouldn't be you know doing personal you know political opinions during that time yep makes thank you. Committee any additional questions. C. known as anyone signed up to speak for against the bill. Representative make sure recognized close for your bill colleagues I'm going to appreciate your time this morning and this is the first step of three cyber related bills that we're looking to passed to make sure that we are as protected as possible for our citizens and with that I would make a motion not do pass pass as amended all those in favor say aye. Opposed. Graduations representative makes you pastor bill thank you recognized to present house bill fifteen fifty five hi so fifteen fifty five we start with an amendment as well and this Amendment was A request from the for a a commission and so I was happy to add that so again my bill my amendment and if if the committee will go ahead and adopt it then I'll get into the whole substance of the of the bill. Amendments coming around now committee members. And it just kind of just further clarifies what the intent of the bill as. You're recognized to present your amendment so again my bill my amendment and I'll make a motion to pass on the amendment. Motion to pass any discussion. All those in favor say aye. Opposed. You're recognized present your bill is amended hi thank you colleagues so this kind of goes back to what representative Bob was saying on not letting the bad guys know what we're doing what the Senate or house bill fifteen fifty five does is it allows the Joint Committee are to meet in a private session to hear the details of a cyber attack on any public entity and also to approve any related cyber related policies for the state here in the last year or so we've had a couple of public entities that have had cyber attacks against them one of that comes to mind had a ransom demand of a certain dollar amount well in order for that dollar amount to be approved the governing entity had to hold a public meeting and in the public meeting they authorized a higher amount than what the bad guys were requesting all the bad guys obviously saw that public meeting yes what ended up happening. The amount they wanted went up to that total amount right and so what we want to be able to do is allow this committee to meet in private to hear the details of those attacks so that we have proper government oversight but at the same time we're not letting bad guys know Hey there was a vulnerability X. Y. Z. in this city government saw why we go to act the other five hundred cities in Arkansas here and see if they have that same phone ability as well the Amendment that you have adopted it is one that lakes of the four year commission asked that we include that just makes it clear that the only thing we're going to be able to discuss in private is these cyber attacks and cyber policy so we're not going to going to a private session to talk about you know the internet or five G. or anything else so that's what this bill does and I'll be happy to entertain any questions. The **** you're recognized now in the private meetings there's not gonna be will there be voting or anything or is it just strictly discussion so if there is a policy that would need to review and approve their would be voting on that policy but those are generally going to be policies that we don't want the bad guys to know we have in place because if they do then that would put the R. could potentially put our folks at a disadvantage. And now we we don't want to allow that to happen. Committee any other questions. Is anyone signed up to speak for against the bill. C. nine representative makes you're recognized because for your bill is amended all right thank you colleagues and I appreciate your time this morning and I'll make a motion of do pass as amended we have a motion do pass as amended all those in favor say aye. Opposed. Graduations representative makes you pastor bill. All right thank you colleagues do we have one more cyber bill that's currently in the works as I understand it is nearing completion so we'll have at least one more meeting once that's done and saying no more business for this morning we are turned.