Minnesota House of Representatives reports…

Carroll introduced:

HF5169, A bill for an act relating to state government; allowing online notary signatures; amending Minnesota Statutes 2022, sections 145C.03, by adding subdivisions; 325L.03.

The bill was read for the first time and referred to the Committee on Health Finance and Policy.

I’m not going to include the full bill here because it’s not the nuance or details that are important but it’s symptomatic of the “new” things we can do with broadband. (The full text focuses on notary for healthcare directive.) When I first started writing the Blandin on Broadband blog (in 2007) broadband was about helping people do things faster. Then about 10 years ago, we started to see new applications that were only available to folks with broadband such as telehealth, remote access to broadband, remote meetings. Then during the pandemic, we really saw the difference between the digital haves and have-nots. We quickly reached a critical mass of need and made strides with increasing supply.

This bill is an example of rules and regulations catching up to technology. It seems like we’re seeing more of these bills. It emphasizes the importance of access to everyone.