To: UMBC Researchers

From: Office of Research & Creative Achievement (ORCA) and Department of Information Technology (DoIT)

Re: Implementation of FAR 52.204-27

There has been a growing call for restrictions and regulations, on both the State and Federal levels, in regards to some social media and digital content applications, specifically (but not limited to) TikTok.  In some instances, restrictions on usage of TikTok and some of its affiliated/associated "apps" have, in fact, been implemented.

In December 2022, the No TikTok on Government Devices Act that was included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 [Pub. L. No. 117-328] and addressed in Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-23-13 was passed and became federal law.

In June 2023, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council published an interim rule, effective as of June 2, 2023, that implemented a new FAR contract clause -- FAR 52.204-27. Prohibition on a ByteDance Covered Application[1]

The rule prohibits the use of TikTok or other applications by ByteDance on contractors' information technology, including employee-owned devices that are used as part of a bring-your-own-device (BYOD)program. The interim rule adds a new contract clause at FAR 52.204-27, Prohibition on a ByteDance Covered Application, which states: "The Contractor is prohibited from having or using a covered application on any information technology owned or managed by the Government, or on any information technology used or provided by the Contractor under this contract, including equipment provided by the Contractor's employees."

Thus far, there is NOT a state ban on using TikTok or ByteDance. There is an Executive Order (under then-Governor Larry Hogan) which bans their use that applies to State departments, but does not apply, per the State Attorney General and USM,  to institutions in the USM.

,

UMBC has not yet seen the new FAR clause incorporated into a federal contract. However, we highly expect to see that clause appear in contracts moving forward. Therefore, UMBC is advising and highly encouraging that anyone in a department/unit who handles sensitive material/information NOT install TikTok on UMBC/State-owned computers and machines.  If a researcher uses any personal devices for their research, UMBC also advises and highly encourages to NOT have TikTok or other noted program applications installed on those machines as well.

This regulation is very new. As such, there are indeed many open questions about the breadth of the restrictions.  Public comment on the clause can be made up until August 1, 2023 and thus changes to the clause could theoretically occur as well, as is the nature of an interim rule.  We certainly will know more as well once we see it incorporated into a new award or issued as part of an award modification.

Please see the list below on current companies (as of June 2023) whose programs and applications should not be installed on devices -University or personal- that are being used for UMBC research. Do note that TikTok is just one example and the list is far more extensive.  For example, ByteDance is a conglomerate of companies that operate a vast array of applications and websites.Beyond TikTok, the following are examples of the websites and applications operated by companies associated with ByteDance:

To: UMBC Researchers

From: Office of Research & Creative Achievement (ORCA) and Department of Information Technology (DoIT)

Re: Implementation of FAR 52.204-27

There has been a growing call for restrictions and regulations, on both the State and Federal levels, in regards to some social media and digital content applications, specifically (but not limited to) TikTok.  In some instances, restrictions on usage of TikTok and some of its affiliated/associated "apps" have, in fact, been implemented.

In December 2022, the No TikTok on Government Devices Act that was included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 [Pub. L. No. 117-328] and addressed in Office of Management and Budget Memorandum M-23-13 was passed and became federal law.

In June 2023, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Council published an interim rule, effective as of June 2, 2023, that implemented a new FAR contract clause -- FAR 52.204-27. Prohibition on a ByteDance Covered Application[1]

The rule prohibits the use of TikTok or other applications by ByteDance on contractors' information technology, including employee-owned devices that are used as part of a bring-your-own-device (BYOD)program. The interim rule adds a new contract clause at FAR 52.204-27, Prohibition on a ByteDance Covered Application, which states: "The Contractor is prohibited from having or using a covered application on any information technology owned or managed by the Government, or on any information technology used or provided by the Contractor under this contract, including equipment provided by the Contractor's employees."

Thus far, there is NOT a state ban on using TikTok or ByteDance. There is an Executive Order (under then-Governor Larry Hogan) which bans their use that applies to State departments, but does not apply, per the State Attorney General and USM,  to institutions in the USM.

,

UMBC has not yet seen the new FAR clause incorporated into a federal contract. However, we highly expect to see that clause appear in contracts moving forward. Therefore, UMBC is advising and highly encouraging that anyone in a department/unit who handles sensitive material/information NOT install TikTok on UMBC/State-owned computers and machines.  If a researcher uses any personal devices for their research, UMBC also advises and highly encourages to NOT have TikTok or other noted program applications installed on those machines as well.

This regulation is very new. As such, there are indeed many open questions about the breadth of the restrictions.  Public comment on the clause can be made up until August 1, 2023 and thus changes to the clause could theoretically occur as well, as is the nature of an interim rule.  We certainly will know more as well once we see it incorporated into a new award or issued as part of an award modification.

Please see the list below on current companies (as of June 2023) whose programs and applications should not be installed on devices -University or personal- that are being used for UMBC research. Do note that TikTok is just one example and the list is far more extensive.  For example, ByteDanceis aconglomerateofcompaniesthatoperateavastarray of applications and websites.Beyond TikTok, the following are examples of the websitesandapplicationsoperatedbycompaniesassociatedwithByteDance:

Hey everyone, dont forget to stop by room 456 in the PAHB today from 2-4 for our first official meeting of the summer!

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Liv

Written by Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections and Gallery, UMBC.

At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Special Collections, where I am head curator, we’ve recently completed a major digitization and rehousing project of our collection of over 5,400 photographs made by Lewis Wickes Hine in the early 20th century.

Traveling the country with his camera, Hine captured the often oppressive working conditions of thousands of children – some as young as 3 years old.

As I’ve worked with this collection over the past two years, the social and political implications of Hine’s photographs have been very much on my mind. The patina of these black-and-white photographs suggests a bygone era – an embarrassing past that many Americans might imagine they’ve left behind.

But with numerous reports of child labor violations, many involving immigrants, occurring in the U.S., along with an uptick in state legislation rolling back the legal working age, it’s clear that Hine’s work is as relevant today as it was a century ago.

‘An investigator with a camera’

A sociologist by training, Hine began making photographs in 1903 while working as a teacher at the progressive Ethical Culture School in New York City.

Between 1903 and 1908, he and his students photographed migrants at Ellis Island. Hine believed that the future of the U.S. rested in its identity as an immigrant nation – a position that contrasted with escalating xenophobic fears.

Based on this work, the National Child Labor Committee, which advocated for child labor laws, hired Hine to document the living and working conditions of American children.

By the late 19th century, several states had passed laws limiting the age of child laborers and establishing maximum working hours. But at the turn of the century, the number of working kids soared – between 1890 and 1910, 18% of children ages 10 to 15 were employed.

In his work for the National Child Labor Committee, Hine journeyed to farms and mills in the industrializing South and the streets and factories of the Northeast. He used a Graflex camera with 5-by-7-inch glass plate negatives and employed flash powder for nighttime and interior shots, hauling upward of 50 pounds of equipment on his slight frame.

To gain entry into factories and other facilities, Hine sometimes disguised himself as a Bible, postcard or insurance salesman. Other times he’d wait outside to catch workers arriving for or departing from their shifts.

Along with photographic records, Hine collected his subjects’ personal stories, including their ages and ethnicities. He documented their working lives, such as their typical hours and any injuries or ailments they incurred as a result of their labor.

Hine, who considered himself “an investigator with a camera,” used this information to create what he termed “photo stories” – combinations of images and text that could be used on posters, in public lectures and in published reports to help the organization advance its mission.

Legislation follows

Hine’s muckraking photographs exemplify the genre of documentary photography, which relies upon the perceived truthfulness of photography to make a case for social change.

The camera serves as an eyewitness to a societal ill, a problem that needs a solution. Hine portrayed his subjects in a direct manner, typically frontally and looking straight into the camera, against the backdrop of the very factories, farmland or cities where they worked.

By capturing details of his sitters’ bare feet, tattered clothes, soiled faces and hands, and diminutive stature against hulking industrial equipment, Hine made a direct statement about the poor conditions and precarity of these children’s lives.

Hine’s photographs made a successful case for child labor reform.

Notably, the National Child Labor Committee’s efforts resulted in Congress establishing the Children’s Bureau in 1912 and passing the Keating-Owen Act in 1916, which limited working hours for children and prohibited the interstate sale of goods produced by child labor.

Although the Supreme Court later ruled it and a subsequent Child Labor Tax Law of 1919 unconstitutional, momentum for enshrining protections for child workers had been created. In 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established restrictions and protections on employing children.

The National Child Labor Committee’s project also included advocacy for the enforcement of existing child labor regulations, a regulatory problem reemerging today as the Department of Labor – the agency tasked with enforcing labor laws – comes under fire for failing to protect child workers.

The ethics of picturing child labor

A recent surge of unaccompanied minors, primarily from Central America, has brought new attention to America’s old problem of child labor and has threatened the very laws Hine and the National Child Labor Committee worked to enact.

Some estimates suggest that one-third of migrants under 18 are working illegally, whether it’s laboring more hours than current laws permit, or working without the proper authorizations. Many of them perform hazardous jobs similar to those of Hine’s subjects: handling dangerous equipment and being exposed to noxious chemicals in factories, slaughterhouses and industrial farms.

While the content of Hine’s photographs remains pertinent to today’s child labor crisis, a key distinction between the subject of Hine’s photographs and working children today is race.

Hine focused his camera almost exclusively on white children who arrived in the country during waves of immigration from Europe during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. As art historian Natalie Zelt argues, Hine’s pictorial treatment of Black children – either ignored or forced to the margins of his images – implied to viewers that the face of childhood in America was, by default, white.

The perceived racial hierarchies of Hine’s era reverberate into the present, where underage migrants of color live and work at the margins of society.

Contemporary reports of child labor violations offer few images to accompany their texts, graphs and statistics. There are legitimate reasons for this. By not including identifying personal information or portraits, news outlets protect a vulnerable population. Ethical guidelines frown upon revealing private details of the lives of children interviewed. And, as Hine’s experience demonstrates, it can be difficult to infiltrate the sites of these labor violations, since they are typically kept secure.

Digital cameras and smartphones offer a workaround. Beginning in 2015, the International Labor Organization urged child laborers in Myanmar to become “young activists” and use their own images and words to create “photo stories” – echoing Hine’s use of the term – that the organization could then disseminate.

Photographs of child labor in foreign countries are far more common than those made in the U.S., which leaves the impression that child labor is someone else’s problem, not ours. Perhaps it’s too hard for Americans to look at this domestic issue square in the eyes.

A similar effect is at work when viewing Hine’s photographs today. While they were originally valued for their immediacy, they can seem to belong to a distant past.

But if Hine’s photographic archive of child laborers is evidence of the power of photography to sway public opinion, does the lack of images in today’s reporting – even if nobly intended – create a disconnect?

Is the public capable of understanding the harmful consequences of lack of labor enforcement when the faces of the people affected are missing from the picture?

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article and see more than 250 UMBC articles available in The Conversation.