Data privacy is generally not on the roll call of topics when it comes to speeches, especially something as profound as the State of the Union for a President of the United States of America. But for Biden, it was, as his 2023 State of Union acknowledged that “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for experimenting they’re doing [on] children for profit,” Biden said during his speech, garnering a standing ovation from members of both parties. “It’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on our kids and teenagers online. Ban targeted advertising to children and impose stricter limits on the personal data that companies collect on all of us.”1
Even in his first State of the Union, in 2022, Biden talked about data privacy as it pertains to protecting children. “It’s time to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children, demand tech companies stop collecting personal data on our children,” he said at the time.2
Trump made no mention of such issues. As for Obama, he briefly mentioned the topic only once during the 2014 State of the Union, following revelations about the previously undisclosed scale and scope of the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs. He said then: “Working with this Congress, I will reform our surveillance programs—because the vital work of our intelligence community depends on public confidence, here and abroad, that the privacy of ordinary people is not being violated.”
1WIRED