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Kicking off another year of advocacy for the insights industry, the Insights Association focused in January on proposed children’s privacy rules, a new tax bill in Nebraska, turning 529 accounts into career savings plans, a proposed tax on displacing employees with any kind of technology, and the Biden Administration’s extensive new artificial intelligence policies… and lots more!

The Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow’s Workforce Act (S. 722, H.R. 1477) would permit certain expenses associated with obtaining or maintaining postsecondary credentials (such as licenses, certifications, or certificates) to be treated as qualified higher education expenses for purposes of 529 tax savings accounts. The bills would transform college savings plans into career savings plans.

As the insights industry closes out 2023 on the calendar, the Insights Association looked back at our advocacy wins and losses on various consumer data privacy issues, and taxes, while checking in on legislation, regulation, and laws at the state and federal level on privacy, taxes, the independent contractor status of research subjects, and artificial intelligence.

As phishing emails circulated across the insights industry this week, the Insights Association reminds everyone to stay vigilant with every communication they receive and avoid falling prey to scams.

During recent conversations with leaders at market research agencies and corporate insights departments, current and future use of AI in our work and is a persistent topic. Some leaders in the space fully believe that AI, and generative tools, will be as important an evolution as the migration to online. More powerful Generative AI applications can bring welcomed time, cost, and quality efficiencies, but can also enable more sophisticated and harder-to-detect fraud.

As Halloween rapidly approaches, the Insights Association is searching for treats in legislation and regulation while trying to defuse the tricks that may pose a threat to the insights industry. In October, we looked at the FTC and some privacy legislation concerns, argued against proposed state data taxes, analyzed AI regulatory proposals, looked at new non-compete restrictions in California, and new federal registration responsibilities for a lot of small insights businesses.

The Insights Association (IA), the leading nonprofit trade association for the market research and data analytics industry, is urging the District of Columbia to reject a proposal that would tax consumer data.

While temperatures are starting to dip, concerns still simmered in September for the insights industry as we dealt with more new state privacy laws, burgeoning regulation of AI, and other pressing advocacy issues.

With a potential government shutdown looming and major design decisions for the 2030 decennial census almost upon us, the Insights Association joined more than ninety groups urging higher funding for the Census Bureau in Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24).

As we close out an intense summer for the insights industry, the Insights Association has been focused on a wide variety of policy issues, including: the launch of a new program for legally transferring European Union personal data to the U.S.; looming worries in complying with state comprehensive consumer data privacy laws that came into effect on July 1, and newly-passed state laws in Florida and Tennessee; the latest developments in compliance concerns and regulation of artificial intelligenc...