Boston State House - Right to Repair hearing - FULL HQ VERSION

good afternoon good afternoon welcome to the Joint Committee on consumer protection professional licensure my name is Jackie Chan in the house chairman to my left is Senator Paul Feeny the Senate chairman and I want to bring a few things to your attention as a housekeeping matter we do have your sign-up sheets any one is not signed up please sign up at the front and deliver to the end here and put it on the computer screens behind us we do not have a computer screen behind us so we do not get to see your names but everyone is on a three-minute clock to testify if you have a piano is three minutes each you can see the clocks in both sides and we have an annoying buzzer I don't want to hear we found out last time jump down to my skin when they heard it so be mindful of the clock also let you know there are recording devices as you can see right here as well as around UI we do permit social media texting love Facebook live media to be here so if you're going to come say something to do something in the audience be mindful that you are being watched as much as we are so if someone has a question what you did get directed towards you not me what else is here we are joined by a number of members in no particular order to my right is represent McKenna represent both represent Livingston is the vice chair to my left is representative Driscoll representative Tom and that's all for now as you may know there's a lot of other public hearings and meetings going on members will be coming going throughout the course of the hearing we're going to start this day off by opening an executive session to move through a few bills so I need a motion to open executive session Somu so move by represented liberties in second by represented McKenna the executive session is now open the committee and your staff had received an advance notice of the executive session bills and we're going to go through them very quickly at a discussion house both 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 and a croats with licensure shampoo builders and service contractors chairs are recommending it be passed as redrafted so move bedrooms a living to then second by relative Dom any discussion on this matter there being none all those in favor say aye or those say nay nay the eyes have it houseboat to 95 represent McMurtry and rush and I can authorize in town add em to grant one additional license for Co beer and wine to be drunk on premise hey Nino motion motion by represent live isn't second-by-second by rumsen of dom any discussion there being none of those face AI or thus a night the eyes have it House bill 399 one representative day an act amending certain liquor licenses in the town of Winchester the she has recommended to pass I need a motion to do so represent of Livingston moves represent of Driscoll seconds any discussion all those in favor say aye those against say nay the eyes have it House bill three nine nine three reps into Murray enact authorizing the town of Milford regret and what additional eight license for the sale Walton mind beverages to be drunken premise she recommends off to pass and heat a motion motion by represents and second by repetition of Dom all those in favor I'm sorry Indy discussion there being none or defensive hi Jose may die scary House bill 4:07 eight rows of Kambo and act authorizing the granting of additional licenses for the sale of alcohol not be drunk at premise in the city Methuen she has recommending hard to pass and he the motion I so move motion by Robinson live in second by the rest of Dom any discussion there being none although say aye - say nay the I is Carrie said about one two eight eight represent of Humiston enact arising the city of hamsa to grant eight additional liquor licenses for the sale and premise for licenses for modern wine on premise one initial license for sell waterline for not on premise I need a motion I so move motion by reps and live is in second by represent of Dom any discussion there being none all those face a hi hi Nene dies carry a motion customer to the committee practice I give session we're going to keep the poll open on these bills for members coming and going to vote during the course of the session and the exactly committee really open so I need a motion to put executive committee into recess representative Driscoll motions reset second by reps into McKenna the exact session is now in recess at this point we're going to open the public hearing we are hearing bass III bills House bill 4 0 7 8 house bill Senate bill 1 7 1 0 7 house both to 1 8 just for sake housekeeping is anybody here at House bill 4 0 7 8 it's a home petition regarding with doing all right we can skip that we're going to the straight to send about 107 and House bill 2 1 8 its companion first up on the list is author Tory from the United okay yes Spano Association artisan's asylum you know the microphone is on because you can see the red light come on in front of you [Music] maybe that brings better should I start over okay my name is Arthur Tory I'm a resident of Billerica and I'm vice-chair of the blur echo disability Commission I'm also a member of the United spinal Association and a member of the artisan's asylum makerspace in Somerville where I spend a great deal of my time working on fixing and doing various things related to equipment of different sorts especially mobility related and I'm here wrongly support right to repair because that is something that has saved me a great deal of energy and let me have better equipment that I might otherwise be willing to afford in firms of general electronics and I would like to urge the committee to consider expanding this bill slightly to encompass consumer owned development medical devices are adaptive equipment such as this power chair right now if my power chair breaks I'm stuck at home for probably six to eight weeks while dealing with insurance and their medical equipment dealers unless I'm able to repair it myself in which case I can go to parts off eBay and have them the next day and so being able to repair my equipment preserves my mobility and I need to have access to the software I'm running stuff that's 20 years old because I can get without manufacturer authorization the software that I need to be able to reprogram the electronic modules if we get something that's more modern I would have to buy only they won't sell to me a $700 dongle in order to use the software that again I can obtain readily without manufacturer authorization but that I could program my moment chair to make it fit my needs and my abilities which is going to be different from what other people with different handicaps would have so this is a very much of a ability to be able to customize things to make them work and I find it ironic that I can go down to the auto parts store and buy whatever I want turn my minivan into a fire-breathing monster without necessarily being mollified to fix my brakes but I can't fix my 4 mile an hour power chair myself because oh you might hurt yourself I have never run into such condensation as I find from the mobility equipment industry and this is something which I would like to be able to have the right to repair my own equipment more than what I'm already doing without anybody's permission because they would make my life a whole lot easier and let me use more modern things like to thank you I do have written testimony thank you the court officer would take your written testimony I could be it mr. Tory any questions to mr. Tory debris none thank you for your time thank you next up I have Sara Faye Pierce director government affairs for association of home appliance manufacturers along with Tim Johnson these McCabe Priscilla Oliveira okay good afternoon members of the committee my name is Sara Faye Pierce I'm the director of government relations for the association of home appliance manufacturers we represent major appliances portables for care so anything from your refrigerator to your room a vacuum to your ninja blender and electric toothbrush and pretty much everything in between we're here today in strong opposition to both the House bill 218 and the Senate bill 1:07 really and you're gonna hear much about this from other witnesses as well this bill is really a solution in search of a problem number one a lot of the the critics that we hear or the opponent or the proponents of this bill say there's not access and there's not opportunity and that couldn't be further from the truth a survey of our members this year shows incredible and broad availability for repair in fact we have 19,000 repair options available across this country that does not include Canada we have more than 80% of those are independent affiliated who are certified to repair the brands that I represent 90% of that 80% are the smallest of the small businesses across this country between one and ten employees so we are really truly providing a pipeline for these small businesses to flourish in their communities 20 states as I'm sure you're well aware have examined this issue this year none have taken action because they agree this is a solution in search of a problem consumers have choice today once you purchase a home appliance the position of a ham is that you have the right to choose however you want to repair that product whether it's by yourself or to seek some other independent whether it's not affiliated or affiliated with our brands and our manufacturers that does not mean that we support the fact that anybody has a if you have a business license to get access to the intellectual property of those brands who are offering those products for sale we have a number of concerns with regard to this legislation safety being one the top first and foremost anyone who comes into the home to repair those appliances that have broken down or who need a replacement parts must be vetted they must go through proper background checks and certain security screenings to make sure that not only they're capable of repairing that product that has been broken or in is in disrepair but they also have you know there's security and there's a confidence that that homeowner has when those individuals are entering the home as I've said technicians are required to have multiple certifications if that independent business is affiliated with our OEMs in our brand and I'll just make it I'll just wow that was worse than my alarm this morning let me just run through these very quickly and then and then I'll wrap up and hand over to my colleagues state certifications for handling electricity and gas EPA 608 certification which requires a special certification to handle refrigerant gases this is incredibly important currently as right now we're in this massive shift of I feel like I just lost my Mike massive shift away from these high global warming potential gases into less impacting gases I'm not sure we need to make me they're kind of losing the Mike here but can you just pass the list on to the person next to you if we can't be different so we can move the testimonial series because if I could see the list from up here we don't like people reading to too much sure okay that's fine yeah but all I'm saying is that these certifications must be maintained again to ensure that these are safely repaired products thank you okay good afternoon chairs vice chairs and other members of the committee my name is Priscilla lavera and I'm the state policy analyst for HR I their conditioning heating and refrigeration Institute thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony today so a chai represents more than 300 manufacturers of air conditioning heating water heating and commercial refrigeration equipment its internationally recognized advocate for the HVAC industry and certifies the performance of many of the product manufactured by its members HR I respectfully opposes House bill to18 as its mandate their original equipment manufacturers OMS make available two independent repair providers any part to service manual software or information for the purposes of diagnosing or repairing digital electronic equipment made by the OEM H I represents companies dedicated to manufacturing and installing highly effective inefficient heating cooling water hidden equipment announced to commercial refrigeration systems for the health safety comfort and productivity of the residents of Massachusetts however the equipment our members manufacture and install is complex and he requires highly skilled professionals to service and install it one of the primary reasons HR believes it's critical the HVAC equipment only be repaired or maintained by licensed professionals to protect the environment if you're not properly installed maintained or repaired HVAC equipment including cutting-edge energy-efficient technologies will not provide important energy savings benefits and we wonder mind energy efficiency initiatives in addition to these concerns equipment warranties could potentially potentially be nullified if service were conducted by an unqualified contractor a manufacturer's warranty is critical for consumer protection and confidence in the equipment they are purchasing HR respects the intent of this legislation but you avoid these unintended consequences we believe it's necessary to near the definite Digital electronic equipment and amended bills language to include an exemption for the HVAC equipment that's all I have and thank you hi good afternoon chairs and members of the committee my name is Lisa McCabe and I'm with CTIA the trade association for the wireless industry our members include wireless service providers infrastructure providers suppliers and manufacturers and we are here in opposition to this bill as was mentioned there is a process by which consumers have a number of ways in which they can get their products today repaired having legislation that mandates the giving away number of different types of information that could be proprietary could could actually even have some legal ramifications and also could be dangerous because of the security of devices if all of a how to book is given out there on how to work on every bit of electronics there there are dangers to something that could be working on a network and also dangers to consumers privacy of their information I think the this bill these both these bills have no assurance for the custom for the consumers it just provides saying give out this information and and and that's that there's there's a provision in there that talks about how the independent repair is if they don't like the information that they've received from a manufacturer that they have recourse but there's no recourse in here for the consumer and I think having authorized repair people who know exactly what they're doing in order to repair an electronics who've gone through training who have gone through a knowledge base in order to provide thing to pair things sufficiently safely and securely is very important today consumers can use independent repair if they choose to they can use authorized repair many opportunities already there and this is really looking at an issue that is already being addressed by the marketplace and by consumer demand Thank You chair Qian chair Feeney members of the committee thank you so much for having me today my name is Timothy Johnson with the Entertainment Software Association ESA is the trade association representing companies that publish computer and video games for an assortment of consumer devices including video game consoles the three major console manufacturers Microsoft Sony Nintendo are members of ESA is important to note at the onset that the three major video game console makers are committed to providing consumers with repairs that are quick reliable and safe they offer a variety of options if a console needs to be repaired indeed they all offer repair services beyond the warranty period to ensure that their consoles remain in good working order because their respective platforms success depends on providing a reliable versatile and engaging platform on which to play video games and to enjoy the digital content we believe that a right to repair mandate would cause severe harm to the video game industry because of the risk it would pose to game publishers that rely upon the secure media environment of the game console to safeguard their works against sophisticated content theft also known as piracy to help prevent piracy video game software and hardware have security features built into them known as technological protection measures TPMS digital locks also to prevent the play of unauthorized video game content briefly the video game consoles firmware runs a verification check on the video game to confirm that is it is a legitimate copy if it is the console will play the game if not the console will not play the game the firmware itself is also encrypted to discourage unauthorized modifications of the system these access controls protect not only the integrity of the consoles firmware but also the video games that run on the consoles these digital locks help to create again a secure media platform granting independent repair shops not author by videogame console manufacturers the tools and know-how to modify the firmware exposes the console security features to potential tampering including disabling or removing the digital locks we believe that sharing sensitive diagnostic information tools and security related reset codes with unvetted third parties would compromise the security of the entire platform and home harm both console makers and game publishers once the console was modified to disable its digital locks any number of illegally copied games could be played on it recognizing that digital locks are entirely necessary and directly related to combating piracy the US Copyright Office the leading authority in the country on copyright matters said as recently as 2018 October 2018 that there is no evidence to support the conclusion of consoles under a general right to repair rule it is also important to note that in this context the DMCA makes it illegal to traffic and tools that can pick the digital locks so any state effort to somehow make unlocking tools available to independent repair shops in order to fix consoles would be at odds with federal law in closing the viability and success of the video game console business is dependent upon a trustworthy and secure platform that compromised which we think it might be if right to repair is enacted thus forcing console makers to open up their firmware it could hurt game publishers and console makers thank you thank you for your testimony any questions for members of committee senator Feeney thank you Tim and thank you to the panel for testifying to appreciate your testimony on this just a couple of things I made note of when you're talking about I think you would mention it originally in the beginning part of testimony many of your members of the Association each of the associations I believe mentioned authorized repair certified repair those are currently independent shops they're just certified through that through the manufacturer yes sir so how it works as I had said the 19,000 repair options in America that are available 80% are independent affiliated which means that they have certified with the brand to go through there process and to fully understand all the systems that go into the different products that those OMS and those brands manufacture so that other you know 20 20 percent and some change our actual in in network or in-house repair so brands like sub 0 or Miele for example would have their own network so there there there is a mix of two but in large eighty percent are independent yet affiliated ok in with those certified repair shops or authorized repair personnel what do they get differently then say you know if Senator Feeney want if I sign you know had Paul's repair shop what would I do not have access to that a certified repair person would well certainly and let me if I could just refer back to that list that I was going through as I I beeped out like I just hid my notes on myself so the the certifications are important and and a lot of it has to do with safety so first and foremost any state certifications to handle products that are using electricity and gas that EPA there's a six oh eight it's a regulation certification to handle refrigerant gases and and what I was saying is right now the the industry any product that has refrigerant gases in this very large transition away from those high global warming potential gases into lower global warming gases and so if you're not trained and certified to understand which gas there's a lot of different types of gases go into which product you have a combustible event opportunity that could happen if it was if there was an improper repair done there background checks and then certainly any local service or company requirements would be required so that's so if I had in a pendant shop that's what I would produce to the manufacturer to the company to say this visa my certifications but then on the other side what would I get in return for that so what would I have to sign an exclusive exclusivity contract where I only work on particular manufacturer do I have you know kind of broad base can I can I work with other manufacturers yes you give me tools and parts that the public doesn't have you certainly have access to two different updates two different you know schematics that would be very inherent to whatever that product is specific to that product right and so the parts issue is a little bit different because there is a pretty broad availability of parts currently on the market a lot of my members will tell me and I would have to admit this as anecdotal so we'll take it for what it is but a lot of the parts and again I'll just harken back to the refrigerant gases for example a lot of parts that would have a safety imperative to it or could cause some type of event in the home again for safety would not be made publicly available and I just have two more minutes the Chairman if I could quickly I'm starting to I guess as we look at the bill and kind of look at the details and receive testimony of which we've received a lot as a committee over the last few months through email and and and things like that there is a difference right between the HVAC components say you know a furnace in somebody's home and that they're you know toothbrushes is brought up or a coffeemaker I mean I would think that would be less of a safety component if somebody wants to repair you know their their coffee maker in their home correct certainly in and I I'm gonna guess that not a whole lot of folks call out for coffee maker repair in their home but I would say it's a refrigerator or washer/dryer dishwasher some of the more may the larger appliances in the home you know a lot of these appliances are certified to organizations like ul CSA ASHRAE and the like which have safety standards that are recognized for example by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and these are safety standards that again ensure the safe operation and the integrity of that product and and I often use the latch on your washer as an example and so there's a safety latch that clicks into function when that washing machine is in that high-spin Pross part of the washing process and if you are not properly trained and certified as a technician so again affiliated to that brand you may not know that that's a safety standard and you're performing a repair and you can't rip that because it is wired into the firmware of that product and so we're talking about very serious issues at play if you have children in the home children are fascinated by lifting that lid and watching that washer go round and round and round right and you don't want that child to be able to manipulate that that product at that time and so these are real considerations that we take very seriously circa thank you for that appreciate the question and then one other thing that jumped out at me in speaking about the video game consoles and you know I'm very sensitive to proprietary information we've talked a lot in this community about patent trolls and all sorts of you know trade secrets there are two sections of this bill that I just I wanted to read through again when you were testifying saying that nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require a manufacturer to divulge a trade secret and then it looks like the next section as well it's it's strictly access to nonde diagnostic and repair information so is that something that if you know we were to kind of work through another iteration of this bill is that sufficient to address the issues that you were talking about on trade secrets or is this something that we should be adding to it or in working on this issue for the past couple of years and and working in a number of different states on this bill and Bill's like this I'm just unsure how you would amend a bill to take that into account for us for consoles when we discuss the firmware it is so interconnected inside the device the firmware the technological protection measures authorizing legal games not flying illegal games all those are so connected I don't know how one would be able to separate that out technologically and I don't know how you would necessarily do that in this bill but just anecdotally I'm wondering how you would amend it to get it to work okay thank you thank you mister from Saddam but thank you how one becomes an authorized repair person if there's a fee involved education schooling that kind of thing I would I can't I can't say specifically I mean it's gonna be a brand by brand determination but there there is certainly a process that has gone through and I would just have to follow up with you on that I don't I don't have that specific information and probably appreciate if you should follow up you would mention that it was 80% of the 19,000 which are about fifteen thousand two hundred people are independent and you also talked a little bit earlier and I'm not I may be conflating the two that one of the advantages of the current system was that the companies sort of do security checks on the repair people before they come into people's homes to repair do the companies check the fifteen thousand two hundred authorized to repair people as well so the the overall the OEM or the brand wouldn't be the one doing the check it would be that independent business that wishes to affiliate so their requirements would be background checks certifications that the OEM or the brand would require so each of the fifteen thousand two hundred authorized deal repair people in the country in the country have been gone through some kind of security check before they go into people's homes that's what our members have told us yes thank you thank you the buff right Thank You mr. chairman um essentially I just want to draw your attention to section 3 of the bill which discusses about essentially the diagnostic repair about not having to continually pay for a subscription service um I'm not as familiar with the specific industries that you represents but I know in other industries that aren't covered in this bill that has been the largest complaint from the independent repair shops is that they're almost you know the manufacturers can raise the prices or maintain that subscription a way that essentially is a none burdensome cost of doing business and I think this gets a little bit - also what representative dome was touching upon but can you maybe talk about in your industry specific what does that contract relationship that these authorized dealers have with your particular products that you represent anyone um as a trade association I don't know what the specific requirements are that every manufacturer would have with their authorized repair do you have an example of for example AT&T if I was would be an authorized AT&T repair person where I have to be paying a certain annual subscription service to be able to repair those cellphones I don't know the answer I'm okay here we could track down the answer for the representative they'll be helpful great thank you any other members all right I got one mr. Johnson because we're gonna try to stay up gaming devices for the sake of ease obviously I think most of us here either familiar played a video game device and I do understand Wichita what rate seekers required to information regarding electronics and the firmware I suppose the question is as part of the say building a ps3 or ps4 is does every device in the system for example the fan right that keeps it cool that that is not a party piece of equipment for Sony that's something they buy from a third party or is that part of the entire proprietary information inside the PlayStation I understand your question and I am unable to answer it I am Not sure I don't know how technically those consoles are made down to the specific part level they might have had a fan specifically designed for the wattage in the size of that console and for the memory hard drive within there there might be a smaller fan for a smaller older system I'm just unsure I can certainly find that out for you it may or may not be proprietary I I'm just unable to answer that right now for you thank you get the information for us because what I'm trying to get at is that absolutely the device in itself while I doing this answer and trade secrets in there but it's obviously a hundred percent well maybe it could be largely custom made in it for example same thing to washer/dryer example not to watch our dryers are created identically there has to be some parts they have to pay for to a third-party group to to get a license to use inside their products and some obviously are a patent still valid and some are patent expired so that's what kind of a curious question is because the device in itself is not solely made of one part that the manufacturer creates and anyone wants to chime in and I think how we would answer that is that we are we were looking at it in the context of the electronic components and how the firmware and the software interact with the other parts of the appliance and so that would be the key determinant and it's possible that no not all parts are intricately interwoven with the firmware in the software if they are then I think the question is that yes it has some bearing but certainly I think going on a little bit of what mr. Johnson was saying is you know all of our manufacturers my members manufacturers work with suppliers and so they have their supplier networks who they have contracted with to make sure that they're putting that product and manufacturing that product to the best of its you know operability and so I think it's just a question italy but i think it would be product by product and frankly for us thank you for your time we could provide information to committee down the road appreciate it anyone else there be none thank you very much for your time thank you next on my list is robin engine thorn from good point recycling a Brockton about it push the button okay used to work at Massachusetts DEP last testified here about 22 years ago I've moved to Vermont started a company doing repair and reuse of electronics have opened a new plant in Brockton Massachusetts we've got about 30 employees I wanted to provide some history on the context of this the industry arguments you just heard versus the right to repair are pretty much the same ones that I studied in high school that were made against the meg Meg Moss Warranty Act of 1975 people were concerned about warranties and the manufacturers are saying if you get into this there's so much legal mumbo-jumbo you'll never get out of it the the government cannot police this thing but Meg Moss Magnuson Moss AK never did take the FTC into the weeds because it mostly works as the brakes on the OEM attorneys once you pass a law about warranties their attorneys will stop the creativity and say well that that could get us in trouble and that's the way we have to look at the right to repair it's insurance against the future I'm not that concerned about the testimony that I've heard from either the manufacturers or do-it-yourself repair people I'm worried about what's going to be possible to do in planned obsolescence five years from now it is going to be possible to make my employees when they take a power cord that still works and sell it online for somebody that's missing a power cord it will be possible to make power cords individually work on individual computers so that it would kill absolutely kill the repair market and finally I just want to say that if the bill is seen as being future insurance like the warranty act against things that might occur in the future that if you look the way the FTC manages warranty claims it's almost all done by mediation there never get into these lawsuits that everybody's telling you are going to happen and these these bills should be seen as putting the brakes if I'm wrong and the other proponents of the right to repair are wrong manufacturers can always lease the device I don't I can't define planned obsolescence but I know it when I see it and that's what we have to give the FTC and regulators in the Commerce Department as a tool for what might happen in the future thank you thank you 8 doesn't want any questions there being none thank you very much for your time mr. Henry Baker no in the repair shop now I'm life good afternoon my name is Henry Baker I own a repair store it's a an iphone repair store on Main Street in Walpole I've been in business now for three years over those three years I probably had at least 1500 customers and last December or December 2017 about closing time I had a family come in with some iPhone sevens that needed charge port replacements the phones with children's phones that were damaged by just a bad charge court they got from a gas station they came in at almost closing time so I wasn't able to do it then but I held the phones to return to them you know a couple of days later so after we closed up I got the bright idea and I took that phone to the Apple store down the street and I asked them to repair the charge court connection that was on the phone and Apple told me the phone was dead they don't fix the charge courts because the charge court is a cord that is directly attached to the motherboard and it cannot be separated so the phone the $704 phone was no good this is a repair that I routinely do every day I charge 60 bucks and I get it done in an hour I saw a YouTube video earlier maybe a couple of days before I think it was Lewis Rossman out of New York who posts a lot of these videos saying that Apple doesn't repair these things and they declare the phone's dead I didn't believe that so you know so I had a phone I had an opportunity and I wanted to see what my customers were experiencing or what they could experience at Apple routinely I also see phones on a regular basis now the interesting thing is one I was at the Apple store I did make a point of meeting went through several people I got to a person who was the manager and it was the manager who told me the phone could not be repaired so was somebody that had some you know some relevance in the store also I certainly see customers all coming with phones and when I see a phone with the water indicators of red you know or if I see signs of staining on panels in the phone typically yeah Apple phones where there's a little bit of staining they have these bright panels that cover the electronics connectors so if any water gets in that you're gonna see a stain on it so I routinely ask him did you go to Apple with this and they'll tell me they did and I say why are you here and they say well Apple told me my phone was dead and they wouldn't repair it because simply there were signs that water got in the phone but the phone is fully operational but this is once again something we normally now we do check that phone out to make sure we'll work before we go to do a repair on it but routinely these phones work so I guess all I'm saying is there is a need for a pair to fill that need okay in the situation where rather large companies who I hold in considerable esteem and really like a lot still they they have practices that are a little unusual you know I I would just never would think of telling my people to tell people that this device you paid $700 for can't be fixed when it can be easily fixed you know routinely that person's being told they got to buy another phone it isn't so bad with Apple they they usually have they have a replacement program so they usually when they tell you that they'll tell you they'll replace it they'll give you a replacement phone which is a used phone and you have to give them your phone in $300 and they'll give you a replacement phone so that repair that runs for 50 or 60 dollars you know Apple as effectively has made that a $300 proposition so once again you know the guys who are doing repairs on the street are adding you know they're giving considerable value to the public then they are protecting the public from a you know from a corporations that sometimes just aren't looking out for their customers okay so that's my statements good good with it thank you very much for your testimony any questions Thank You senator Feeney has a question for you hold on one second Thank You mr. Baker for coming in he said shops in Walpole yeah it is that I recognize you today yeah I've been in business on Main Street for three years doing the cell phone repair okay and strictly cell phones you do yeah it's it's pretty well cell phones and iPads okay so I appreciated your story about you know going to the to the Apple store just to see how I went through we know I think and we're hearing a lot of testimony tell you about how this bill would benefit consumers mmm if this was gotta find into Massachusetts law how would it affect you as an independent shop what could you do if we do without this bill that you can't do currently Oh what it just wouldn't bring more customers in or is this strictly consumer derivative you know the real the real issue is that Apple over the years with the 6s they introduced the trick where if you when you did a repair on that phone they did something where I believe if you swapped if you broke the the home button the next installation of the operating system would brick the phone so effectively they turn the phone into a brick you just lost six hundred and fifty bucks because you brought it to another store they did the repair you know the software they recognize the fact that it was a foreign device on there if they turn the phone into nothing but the fact is that that that that attempt to shut down the repair business was ended very quickly because a lot of lawyers have cell phones and they were hit with so many class-action suits and so many so many suits came Adam the next release of the operating system opened those phones up again so you know so so the the need for repair can is very much needed on the cell phone side because it's very easy for them through software to identify parts most of these parts do have by IMEI numbers they do have ways of trapping we're eventually they'll shut shut it down and put us all out of business and it won't take much and and at that point the consumer loses out because now all of a sudden nothing will be repairable or at least I could go to that point right now they do repair glass but from my understanding you know the podcast that I seen I don't know this for certain but I think you can see it on you know some of the podcasts that are out there iPad rehab out of New York has recently has interviewed a number of people coming to them and these people are saying that they've gone to IP Apple Authorized stores and Apple Authorized stores are not authorized to do any repairs so they've got this tag out to authorized but they don't allow them to do repairs okay and one more question you see people that come into your store you know their phone is bricked or maybe there's something that you can't repair on what the percentages on you know people that come in here stole that you actually there's nothing you can do anything for so number one are there a lot of you know cases where they bring in an info you just can't repair a number two okay so anyways you know if I I'm sorry okay now we're getting down to business practices but the bottom line is we are very susceptible to the market in general without any laws whatsoever because the one issue is we've got Yelp out there we've got Google my business out there we've got all these reporting sites the minute I screw up somebody's on that site saying I was a bad guy whenever I get dinged generally speaking it's just a character that doesn't want to pay for something you know but generally speaking you know generally speaking I have to deal with it I have to get back to them try to work it out or do something there so you know let's get rid of that guy so you know so you know so on my site and on our site if we mess up and we have a healthy phone okay it gets damaged I just buy the phone of them and if we have a situation generally speaking also I only do a certain number of repairs ninety ninety percent of my business is screen replacements okay another five percent might be charge ports another 2% might be home buttons you know it's a very limited thing I'm not into micro sorry although I might get into that that's fine no I understand in trust me I'd if you weren't good at the job than you you wouldn't be able to be in business side together yeah I turn people away and I do like let's say a phone a phone came in the other day it was absolutely crushed it was a traffic coordinator a woman in the street in front of a school drops a phone in the street didn't realize it then she sees the phone's been then it's been run over five times look leg was grown into the directory president to me I think that I said yeah well let's check it out take the screen off pop a new screen on comes right up everything's working fine yeah but normally what we'll do is throw a screen on it first of all you know we do some Diagnostics and if it doesn't look it's gonna take the screen that we just stopped the whole thing you give it to them give their money back all right so I don't want to take up all the time a committee members here because a constituent business practice yeah no no my question is my last question if somebody does come in and they ever you know you're not a magician you're attack and they come in with something that's crushed or a phone that just is not no longer operable what do they generally do with that does that do you take that in recycler form do they throw it in the trash do they keep it around I'm just trying to think yeah I suppose I'd point you to ebay and I tell them because sometimes I had a guy in yesterday with four or five phones he's trying to sell me I just told him go to ebay you can sell them even broken exes of worth 150 for the parts broken you know broken sevens you can get 50 bucks for them sometimes with Apple you can go to Apple and you can see if the screens not crushed you can go to Apple and get some money on a run on a you know when you go to buy a new phone so you know so they can they still have value you know I don't but I don't trade in phones I don't buy phones I don't buy part so I buy my parts and the parts distributors and that's it I don't want to be I don't want to be taking parts out of dead phones I don't know what what the parts went through the parts are cheap enough right all right thank you sir okay sure Thank You senator any questions there being none as you can tell the chair gives some flexibility regarding the time limit but just the people don't look at us because I'm gonna start doing this a little bit won't see a time limit to let people know he should try to wrap up my polite way of doing this as opposed to just gambling you next up is Adam Fulton from Boston Microsoft they're soldering he's told to turn my mic on before I came up thank you ladies and gentlemen ranking members in coach Harris my name is Adam Fullerton I was born in Holyoke grew up in Sudbury and I've been professionally repairing small electronics in Boston for the last 13 years currently I'm the operations manager for cell phone repair Boston we own and operate the two largest walk-in repair shops in Boston earlier this summer I also started a project called Boston micro sorry where we drive around the state will pick up and purchase either defective water damaged electronics we will document and record the repairing of these devices with the goal of educating both hobbyists and small businesses to repair devices that otherwise might be beyond their current capability we then sell these refurbished devices to pay for the video equipment and more educational content so I'm actually not really here today to talk about my professional experience I'm here to talk about my mother-in-law strangely enough so I met my wife's family earlier this year my mother-in-law had just gotten off of a long vacation it was her first time to Taiwan she then came to Boston for the first time she met her granddaughter for the first time she had a wonderful summer saved for her experience with the manufacturer of her phone so during one of her trips her cell phone and iPhone 6 had unfortunately taken a dunk in the ocean salt water damaged and she did what most consumers do they go to the manufacturer the first service points the most obvious service point to try to get this device repaired she had taken hundreds if not thousands of photos while she was in Taiwan this is expensive trip she spent thousands of dollars on she had just met her granddaughter and taken hundreds more pictures of my daughter and after getting a little bit of water on her phone it was inoperable so she initially actually went to a an Apple store in in Shanghai China then to the Apple store on Boylston Street a mile from here in Boston and was promptly told by sales reps and managers that her device was dead and could not be repaired strangely enough the device was still charging you could plug it in you could hear the charging indicator blip but there was nothing on the display now she was given essentially one option at both Apple stores that she visited your device cannot be repaired you can pay $299 for a replacement replacement of a device which in 2019 is worth less than $200 but my mother-in-law really wasn't interested in replacing several year old device she she could buy a new one obviously Apple wanted to sell her an iPhone iPhone 10 but she needed her data she wanted pictures of my one day old daughter she wanted her vacation photos thankfully for her she did not take no as an answer it as an answer she brought the phone to me a little bit more experienced in these matters and long story short we were able to repair that device with a chip that control a chip that supplied power to the screen that got the device to power on with a poorly working screen we then paid 14 more dollars to purchase another screen so I was able to get the parts in this case but not from Apple you know going to Apple we can't purchase the board level components that allow us to do data recovery whether it's for the customers that I've dealt with for the last decade or even members of my own family and even if we are able to get these components they come from overseas I had to purchase two parts one from Hong Kong one from Shenzhen China wait a couple weeks for them to come in so that I could fix my mother-in-law's phone in my kitchen beyond that it would have been impossible to do these repairs if not for documentation that leaked on the internet I cannot go to Apple and request a wiring diagram request a schematic and again I wasn't looking for source code for firmware for cryptographic you know keys I needed a map of the motherboard to know where the power supply goes to figure out if there's a blown fuse and replace it and only because somebody in Apple supply chain leaked this information on the internet manufacturer refused to provide it we were able to repair it and thankfully we got her photos back but if the manufacturer has had their way all of this information that's required for repair would be considered proprietary and it would be impossible to recover data off of phones like this thank you very much for time and also chair Chen if the ESA is unable to answer questions about their own industry I would be happy to answer any for you thank you what do you offer any question for members of committee give me none thank you for your time thank you very much as a customary with all committees since we have a lot of things going on we do to legislators out of turn I see senator Brady is here my constituents have called and supported this in my business community as well this is a relative to the digital right to appear this bill will expand consumer choices in a current non competitive market and subsequently saved both the consumer and with time and money in digital electronic products we did remove the medical part of this because public safety is of the utmost important this right to repeal legislation juices costs were appears to end units end users by creating more competition in the Mac ablation eliminates long waiting periods and of course I'm not technical Article II astute so I just had to purchase a new phone because my other phone broke and it would have taken me months on end to send it to a manufacturer and get it back and be repaired so I had to break down and spend some good hard-earned money to buy a new phone but I'm learning how to use it too because I'm not a technological suit but I do just ask you to support this and as I mentioned for safety concerns this bill does not apply to medical equipment Thank You senator and if your phone is still broken there's about 200 people in the romantic we help you out including the one right behind you well I'm sure there's a lot of young people that have much more technological information than I do so thank you sir I just wanted to thank you for bringing this to my attention for being a champion in the bill and I don't discuss this over the last couple of months in preparation for the hearing so thank you for filing in for having the discussion with me and my colleagues on it he's a lot thank you said if your testimony any questions represented McKenna yeah real briefly senator you mentioned not applicable to medical equipment I know that there had been three standards of certification and there was some previous editions that were had some exemptions but not all does this version have all medical equipment exactly because that's the whole Public Safety's concerned that that was taken out of the bill thank you and and I'm in the middle of a public service hearing as well I'm cheering so I snuck out but if anybody needs to contact me my office is always open we can keep you here longer if you don't want go back I've got to go back to the important retirement legislation were working on Thank You senator thank you to the committee for your time next up is a Valentin on they're gonna murder this name for a rooster roof from Boston mobile phone repairs well you don't have to bring your sign but that's okay hi good afternoon my keys on never been here before moved to the US about twelve years ago I am from Romania originally I moved to Italy I lived in Italy and now I'm in Boston Boston is a great city I like it so I've set up family here and now a citizen so I'm trying to help others in understanding how you know this this works so I've opened my business about six years ago started at very small and we're trying to help people mostly you make sure that what we're doing gets them happy out the door very fast we're not trying to steal any software we're not trying to steal any technology we're not interested in that we're interested in helping our community which is in Somerville and around Somerville in Boston as well to get their devices up and running if you have a broken screen I can fix that in about 15-20 minutes if you have broken charging port we can fix that too we have seen in the past three to four years that in this means in this industry that we're in Apple mostly is trying to manipulate through software parts of the phone that they don't need any kind of software to run properly even if the parts are brought in China refurbished reused from a different phone so we've seen a lot of this maybe not all of you are technologically advanced but in order to change a screen you don't need software to prepare it but Apple came up with the solution and they said if you're not using our software to pair the screen we're not going to give you full access onto the screen lighting for example the light will be maybe dimmer or a different color and they're controlling that through software I'm just trying to fix your screen so you can go and come here and do your job and I'm trying to support my family and my community that's what we're doing we don't want to steal any property any intelligence if you have a console that you want to work and play on it and your charging port it's broken you don't need software to fix that you can my cursor or solder another port on it and your console it's up and running if you have to send that out it would take three weeks for you to get your console back and I know how much you love gaming therefore I want to fix it fast for you so you're back in that's what we're doing we're trying to help community and we're trying to make good to people we're not trying to take anything from anybody thank you a testimony any questions give me none thank you for your time thank you next up is Jessa Jones from iPad rehab micros honoring Jessa Jones oh they are how does this work let me try it fix it okay they're fixed have you tried turning it off and on the old classic I'm Jesse Jones I'm here from Rochester New York I flew here just to come and talk to you guys today I was a stay-at-home mom and then I started fixing broken Apple devices primarily and other devices as well I've now trained seven other stay-at-home moms and one stay-at-home dad to also fix these devices we fixed over 30,000 devices less than 5% would have been considered repairable by authorized repair so I wrote down some things so that I don't waste my time here recently I became Apple certified so I am Apple certified you can see it right here now this is largely meaningless in fact it tells you right on the back of the letter what can you do it says benefits of being Apple certified technician a certification website this site gives you online access to your certificate and that's it and that's pretty much true because there really isn't like you've heard from these guys bonafide practical options for authorized repair at least not for Apple devices and Samsung devices like I'm familiar with so that leaves this this gap here where if you say have an iPad practice screen there is no authorized repair whatsoever for anything that you can do to break your iPad period no service whatsoever what if you like these guys lose your you know drop phone in toilet now you've lost your memories there's no authorized repair for data recovery and then even things like a really classic problem iPhone 7 epidemic failure of audio I see Apple will if you go there they will tell you that it is a made-up thing they've never heard of before even though we know that they're internal in health support ranks that is the number one problem that they're hearing calls about so we have this long history of being misled by by manufacturers and what I wanted to talk to you one thing I'm kind of afraid about is that the new independent repair parts provider program from Apple is sort of this hand-waving yeah so you know we're doing right to repair so go away unnecessary that is not good enough in fact that repair that program is is quite anti repair so for example iPhone 6s if I want to go buy an iPhone 6s it's going to cost me about 200 bucks if I get it used on swap accom which is a pretty good place to get phones if I want if I drop that phone and I cracked the screen then the Apple certified price for that screen is 160 bucks and the Apple certified repair price 169 bucks so the independent repair provider program is economically not feasible and so it's going to be just like authorized repair which is we don't really fix anything we tell you everything's not repairable and we want you to go buy a new phone now that sets the stage though for what I'm really afraid of which is the same stuff that these guys have mentioned to you earlier today software locks it is true when I heard Robin say you these guys could make it so that you can't plug in a power button it's you know coded to the device we're seeing precedent for that right now as we sit here today iOS 13 was released and it now if you switch the battery will tell you this battery nearby Apple and it will way function it will take away your battery health information if you change your screen you'll lose true tone you'll lose ambient light sensor function if you lose your home button you could lose your whole device because you can't press home to update and there goes your data so we're seeing precedent for this software lockdown you asked what could I do differently if this bill was passed and for me assuming it trickles over to new york which i think it would i would be able to fix more stuff my coreg my Roomba you know things that i would like to fix is you know I would teach kids to fix I've trained 500 people to learn how to micro solder I love fixing people love repair and practical repair is such a great thing that users don't have an option to do practical repair from authorized sources so we need bills like this we need your support to help enable users to have the choice to roll back their software to a version as their device still supports you know if you keep updating your phone you're gonna get a hardware software mismatch and then it doesn't work anymore well how about how about this listen can I say I understand there's a security risk give me is the ability to consent I understand I might blow myself up fine I understand that I would may have a security risk if I want to go back and make my phone work again on the old operating system we can't do those things and and I think those a software locks are what I'm really afraid of because we're seeing more and more and more of them coming out that's all I'm happy to answer questions thank you for your testimony any questions there being none thank you for your time and taking time come down my rep center of Rogers here and you know you're so popular thank you I get that a lot well chair Feeny chair Jan thank you so much members of the committee I appreciate the opportunity to testify on H 2018 introduced by my colleague Claire Cronin and the digital right to repair bill I'm sure you've heard from a lot of folks today so I'll try not to go on too long I have more lengthy testimony that I will submit for the record and I'll just try to summarize the key points as I see them H 2018 is about updating a core right of property for the digital age that right is of course the long recognized right of owners to tinker with disassembled service repair and maintain their own property this right has been recognized in US and British law for centuries in short once you've sold a thing you no longer control it sure you can protect your trade secrets or other intellectual property rights patents but you don't control the device instead it's the new owners property to do with as he or she sees fit these two bills also one introduced in the Senate recognize that basic consumer and property right and update it for the digital age manufacturers make a wide variety of arguments against repair from security trade secrets marketing but simply put digital right to repair laws don't require manufacturers to make repairable devices what it says is if you do make a repairable device and supply your own staff with schematics and diagnostic software and the like you have to make those available to the device owner and their agent as well as such digital right to repair isn't just about empowering owners it's also about supporting small neighborhood repair shops that might support a family while keeping repair costs lower and more convenient for literally millions of consumers right to repair is a pro-consumer pro-environment reform it's designed to prolong the useful life of devices the last 40 years has seen a steady erosion of repair manufacturers who stopped providing tools parts and information that used to come standard with new products like TVs home appliances vehicles this throwaway culture is very expensive for consumers and very very expensive for the planet as toxic waste is now the single fastest growing type of waste finally in this time of increasing wealth inequality and concentrations of market power by large technology firms a digital right to repair ensures that the spoils of the coming Internet of Things are distributed throughout the economy let me ask should Massachusetts give any company a green light to create a multi-billion dollar aftermarket service and parts monopoly or doesn't it make more sense for the base state to allow residents to make a business of servicing these products for other Bay State residents technicians in the state making a good salary doing logic board repairs on various devices or we can grant essentially a monopoly so I really appreciate your time I thank you for your consideration I know you're gonna hear lots of arguments on this and it's a it's a challenging issue for the committee but I hope this bill will get a favorable report and again thank you very much Thank You representative any questions there being none thank for your time we've been joined by Rumson Maduro at then over here on my left next up is Daniel Carlson for Schmidt equipment good afternoon mr. chair distinguished members of the committee appreciate the opportunity to testify my name is Daniel Carson and I represent Schmidt equipment incorporated our dealership represents John Deere construction equipment along with product lines such as Hitachi and workin' Road building equipment we have five locations in Massachusetts we strive to bring our customers value in all we do to do so we spend significant capital each and every year to ensure our technicians have the latest safety and technology training while John Deere equipment has become more sophisticated deere supports the customers right to repair and has built an advanced diagnostic capability into its equipment that are available to the owner dealers or others and for those customers who require even greater diagnostic capabilities John Deere provides subscription access to customer service adviser a special diagnostic tool similar to the tools we use to support our customers customers customers should be able to expect the same level of information across all manufacturing brands it is an appropriate solution that makes so-called right to repair legislation unnecessary that is why manufacturers of tractors and combines such as John Deere have made an industry commitment to make available my model year 2021 the tools customers need to navigate onboard technology in the near future end-users will have access to onboard diagnostics tools via in-cab display wireless interface electronic diagnostic service tools and training on how to use both manufacturers and dealers will also make available manuals product guides and product service information however to the extent that the owner has the right to lawfully repair his or her equipment john deere recommends against unauthorized modification of the embedded software code providing access to the source code would not only undermine the manufacturers innovation and intellectual property rights would also risk data privacy and allow unauthorized in illegal tampering illegal tampering of safety and emissions requirements for the equipment modifications also create unknown liability issues for the individuals modifying the code dealers who subsequently trade in modified equipment for resale as well as subsequent owners of modified equipment modified software on heavy-duty equipment can create an unsafe environment for those operating the equipment bystanders near the equipment or those repairing the equipment i my statements available to the committee here and well in my testimony there thank you very much any questions representative sorry senator Feeney Thank You chairman Chen and take you for your testimony being here today so just for clarification purposes you mentioned that there's a commitment from say John Deere I think was a manufacturer you're talking about to make available to the consumers diagnostics manuals product guides what purpose does that serve to somebody who owns a John Deere piece of equipment if they can see that there's a problem they have a guide and they can tell that there's a code but that they can't actually do anything with it unless they go to a John Deere authorized repair shop correct so what purpose would that serve to give a consumer that information I'll give you the the best answer and I'll any information that I don't touch on I'll make sure we'll get you a proper reply but in the essence of the construction trade as you know uptime being able to work is critical and you've been a project and you have to come in under and try to actually make a profit on that job right so what you do by providing the tools as John Deere does as caterpillar does as Komatsu as Volvo does is to ensure that there is a certain level of serviceability that can be handled at the owner or the the customers beck-and-call if you will the more technical stuff yes it does does require us to to go to that next level but as an industry we share a lot of information to make sure cuz uptime and and owning and operating costs are critical to these machines that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for jobs that are millions of dollars to complete on time so that's that'd be my answer I guess my concern in you know speaking about downtime I mean this is Massachusetts right in my district I have you know kind of one part of the district that's pretty rural and I don't know they need to provide more funding for road work there's I agree with that I agree with that but but you know my concern is that you know if I have a farm in the southern part of my district and they have John Deere equipment but they don't have access to you know a John Deere dealership or a place where they can get to quickly whereas the rest of their equipment you know they can take to the small engine repair shop down the street they can take to their independent auto days some of the mechanics on site depending on the size of of the farm and my concern is that though they can fix all the rest of their equipment and their truck because we have a right to repair auto water Massachusetts they can't then take this equipment that they've spent a lot of money on and get that repaired you know to their independent repair shop nearby that they actually have to you know travel long distances or you know somewhere else so I guess Mike my concern exactly like you said is is downtime and one of the things that these you know proponents the farming proponents that Lisa brought to me is look we have independent repair shops that work on all the rest of our equipment we would like the same for you know for this equipment thank you thank you take any other questions there be none thank you for your time thank you okay next up is David Timmy Dukey PhD lieutenant-colonel US Air Force retired lieutenant colonel come on up well thank you for this opportunity I'll keep my remarks very brief I support right to repair because I think it makes it better engineering I spent a lot of time working with large military engineer I did engineering all my life my concern on the consumer front is once even when products are serviced by the manufacturer by authorized agents there isn't the information to actually do the repairs modern washing machines that happen recently to meet other family members you're out of warranty they used my speaker phone to talk to the authorized repair shop they said it was broken if I had the data I think I could have understood what was wrong with that sensor and fixed it and I encouraged even it's looking how to expand this law to make out of warranty engineering data available to keep from junking very expensive equipment thank you thank you lieutenant colonel any questions from the committee seeing none thank you for testimony next up Paul Roberts from secure pairs Doug welcome Thank You chairman beanie and Chan vice-chairs Welsh and Livingstone and members of the joint committee my name is Paul Roberts I'm a resident in Belmont Massachusetts and a lifelong resident of the state I'm the founder of secure repairs org which is a not-for-profit group of more than 150 cybersecurity experts who support the creation of new consumer protection laws enshrining a digital right to repair I speak to you today to voice my support for bills Senate bill 107 and House bill 218 an act relative to the digital right to repair and also to answer any questions you might have particularly in regard to cybersecurity risk and the Internet of Things let me start by thanking all of you for scheduling today's hearing and for making time available for this important issue to have a proper airing you've shown through your actions you take the proposed digital right for legislation seriously and wish to hear all sides before making a decision I thank you all for that for the opportunity to speak today I'd like to say that you know you you're hearing both arguments before and against the digital right to repair at the risk of oversimplifying I'd like to say that most the arguments you're hearing against this are not substantive and most of the arguments you're hearing for it are I'm going to talk specifically just about the cybersecurity issues that have been raised by a number of the opponents of this bill and the suggestion that should we grant a digital right to repair to owners and independent repair professionals that somehow we're inviting some kind of cyber apocalypse in which connected devices are going to be vulnerable to a hat to hacking and data theft I've been writing about security cyber security for 17 years I started covering cyber security as a journalist in 2002 and what I'll say is that the the worst case scenario that the manufacturers and their representatives are worrying about are warning you about is more or less already upon us we already have a huge problem with insecure connected devices in our environment as an example of this I all point to the 2016 Mirai botnet attack took out a New Hampshire company called Dyne and by extension dines customers who included Twitter amazon.com and major retailers that was a botnet that consisted of compromised webcams digital video recorders broadband routers and a variety of other IOT devices now note we have a major botnet attack and there have been many more sense then of Internet of Things devices but we have no digital right to repair that should suggest to you that any link between cybersecurity problems with the Internet of Things and digital right to repair are not substantive we already have a problem the source of that botnet Mirai was not cyber criminals reading schematics and was not cyber criminals using diagnostic software for webcams DVRs and the like it was it was poor quality embedded software on devices that are already deployed out in homes businesses and other environments the cyber criminals simply used default administrative passwords to hack into those devices take control of them and use them to launch an attack so I would I would say to you that this is already a problem and in essence what OMS are saying is that they want to keep the security that their software protected from prying eyes that's probably not surprising a audit by the group the cyber independent test lab of some 6,000 firmware version software's this is firmware as a device the software that runs on embedded devices going back 15 years from 2003 to 2008 een found that during that time there was no improvement in the security of that embedded device software over 15 years so security through obscurity is not a thing keeping the workings of software and devices secret does not keep them more secure in fact hackers cyber criminals are very resourceful they're also very determined one of the many benefits of a digital write to repair opening up the devices to maintenance and service from independent repair shops as well as owners is to make them more accessible understandable and in some ways to hold OMS and manufacturers to account for the quality of their software so I thank you very much I'm happy to answer any questions you may have either about what I said or about what some of the other industry representatives said thank you for your testimony any questions there be none thank you for much for your time thank you very much next up is Ray I'm gonna miss this one up 200 file file from repair cafe ambassador thank you for allowing me to testify chairman Chen Feeny and members of the joint committee my name is Ray fowl and I live in Bolton Massachusetts I'm a retired software engineer now a member of the Rotary Club of Nashoba Valley and Bolton local which is our town sustainability group and I'm gonna talk about a little different perspective I grew up kind of tinkering with things all along and then about six years ago I started thinking about maybe helping other people to learn how to fix their things and and get their things repaired rather than you know throwing them away or and buying new or getting frustrated with things so we ended up in our town we started a an event a repair event that we call repair cafe and the original idea started about 10 years ago in the Netherlands a woman named Martina Postma kind of got this idea and said you know we're gonna start holding events and the way it works is we set up in a school and a bunch of volunteers come and then we invite people anybody who wants to come who has something they can carry in that's broken and we try to help them fix it for free so that they can keep using their things we keep things out of the landfill and we save them money so as far as we'll look at anything that comes in but as far as the electronic side of things we get all kinds of things we get air conditioners vacuum cleaners computers laptops cell phones fans dehumidifiers so we then try to help the guests fix it and we end up with of course we don't know what we're going to get from one time to the next but we typically end up with about a 75% success rate in terms of being able to repair things and have people be able to keep using them we were when we started in September 2013 we were the second repair event in Massachusetts the first one was out in Pittsfield in early 2013 and now over the last several years we've been helping other towns get started so we're now up to 33 towns in Massachusetts that are running these repair events and it could be ours we run three times a year others run once a month or maybe just once a year the key is you want to keep your volunteers happy because if they stop coming and you don't have anybody to do the repairs so that's why we've chosen to do it three times a year and it seems to be working very well there are worldwide now over two thousand towns groups that are running these repairs so it's really kept together so anyway the the reason that I support this bill is it will give our repair volunteers a chance to have more likelihood of being able to repair the different events if we can get access to you know repair information schematics and so on and that's going to help us help community members and people in the Commonwealth and throughout the world to keep using their items any questions thank you very small any questions from the membership there being none thank you very much okay thank you and next up is dotty full gene T Nene from Omni Tech sales thank you chairs Chan Feeny and members of the committee my name is Dottie full Jannetty and I live in Easton neighbor to Walpole now I know where to go get my iphones repaired - i'm here to testify in favor of digital right to repair for more than 20 years now i've been working in the computer industry selling maintenance contracts to big data centers that have servers storage and network equipment and back in the day the OEMs used to work with the independent providers because it was really about they were selling hardware and they really didn't want the maintenance but what they realized is if they gave data center data centers or any kind of computer users the ability to extend the life cycle of their products that meant they couldn't sell them Hardware fast enough so they started to clamp down on some of the regulations making it harder for independent companies they did set up some independent companies that they called VARs value-added resellers but they were essentially working for the OEMs and providing them money back in return so the true independence were really struggling with that if I remember I had a customer that had an eight hundred thousand dollar server the OEM wanted to charge them a hundred thousand dollars a year to support that the independent company I worked with could have done it for 50 and so what the OEM started doing then is saying they wouldn't give you the software updates unless you had a contract with them so imagine on your computers that you use every day if all of a sudden they said well we're gonna give you you know we're gonna sell you that but now to use it you have to pay us more money even though the guy down the street could repair it so they really kind of hold you hostage with that and I guess it's it's really all about the money when these when they can't sell as much hardware as they'd like they try to clamp down on it on the software end what happens when all of this equipment is obsolete because you can't get anyone to service it it goes into the landfills and that's a real problem as other people have stated so I think that this is really very similar arguments for and against the same way as the automotive right to repair bill was and I have to say that you know sometimes the opponents of this make it sound like rocket science and like the world's gonna come to an end if we don't move forward with this and the questions that your that you've all been asking are really great questions and I thank you for your time and looking into this thank you for your testimony any questions from the members there be none thank you so much next up is Janet dumb the minutes from Mass perk sure come on down all right in also Ryan Powell okay good afternoon chairman Chen Feeny members of the committee thank you for this opportunity my name is Janet dominance I'm the director of mass / statewide citizen based advocacy organization we represent thousands of members across the state and we're here today to support digital right to repair I have many reasons for doing so I will limit my testimony today to three of them first of all consumer protection I assume I'm not the only one who had a grandmother who said use it up wear it out make it do or do without but we can't follow that adage when companies like Apple intentionally design products to quickly become obsolete I'm referring to battery gate in which Apple was discovered to be slowing down iPhone batteries which they only admitted after being exposed by a consumer that's just one example of big companies doing a huge disservice with their products to consumers the result is Americans disposed of over 400,000 cellphones every day in large part because companies make companies designed them to be obsolete or difficult to repair the second reason is public health we've heard already that electronic waste is a huge and growing concern in this country if you break down that figure of 400,000 cellphones around the country 8,000 8,000 of them are disposed every day in Massachusetts and that means electronic waste is going into our landfills and incinerators it's estimated that 40% of the heavy metals in the United States landfills come from discarded electronics so we need we need to recognize the public health problem of disposing this kind of material the third reason is Environmental Protection working backwards from disposal by far the largest impact of consumer electronics is in the manufacturing of them to begin with one study found that building a new smartphone represents approximately 90% of the device's total co2 emissions for two years if these devices were made to last and repair is key to that goal less of them would be made and resulting in less damage to the environment in summary by far the easiest cheapest cleanest and most sustainable way to address address waste problems is to keep these products in use as long as we can but repair is being blocked and that's why we need this reform we need to get back to that first word in the mantra that everyone knows reduce reduce what we use reduce what we dispose of reduce our impact on the planet right to repair literally gives us the tools we need to reduce consumer ripoffs Public Health's and environmental pollution thank you for your consideration [Applause] hi my name is Ryan I'm a junior at UMass Boston and the chapter chair for our mass Burke chapter I'm coming to speak on behalf of just as a consumer that have felt this sort of these grievances towards manufacturers 3 specifically I've had a smartphone for about 10 years and iPhone for seven ish and each and every one of them has issues with its charger port one specific one I accidentally dropped it in the screen cracked my fault so I brought it to the Apple Store they said well we can't fix it but we can send it out and have it be in the shop for wherever it has to go for about three weeks and have me not have a phone for three weeks or have something that's not resemble resembling the phone I had in a society or world that we need to stay connected for me to be able to go to school check an update with any sort of my classes on my phone and whatnot and so not being and then actually I went to the kiosk to get the screen repaired and it broke within about two months after it was repaired because the screen that was replaced wasn't actually the screen that needed to be put on the phone because it was not the actual screen that apple provides when they when you first buy the phone no one is I actually had a ps4 growing up in high school and I actually really appreciate chair Chan bringing up the console issue because this is exactly what happened I sent it out to get repaired after about a year or so and it was out for about a month at Sony where we did were told to send it to them and it came back and the issue still persisted actually they didn't even fix it themselves which is even more ironic if they're the manufacturer themselves and also growing up with my mom we actually had a washer and dryer where the washer broke down after about I don't know a year so it was our first washer and dryer with my mom and we were taking it to the laundromat for a long time before we got the dryer washer and dryer and the washing machine broke we couldn't get it fixed ourselves so we had to hire somebody from the appliance place that we bought it from cam appliance on Cape Cod and after three or four visits the them not being able to figure out what was wrong with the washing machine that they sold to us we ended up we're told to just have to buy a new one and at that point I just didn't think that that was any sort of an issue that that was something that we had to do and it seems more and more nowadays we're given problems and sold the solution and it's almost indicative by the little things that are put on Chargers nowadays to make sure make sure your charger doesn't scrunch up and break rather than you know making sure that the charges themselves don't do that over time as like the company of themselves should do but thank you so much I don't want the beeper to go off so I'm gonna cut it off right now okay this has been scaring me the whole time yeah the charge isn't the alarm thing is no fun as everyone's discovered any questions the man they're bringing unthinking for so much taking time come on no thank you - next up is a Christina Fisher from tech net good afternoon chair chair chair Feeny thank you so much for the opportunity to testify before you this afternoon my name is Kristina Fisher and the executive director for the Northeast for TechNet since I've been before you before I won't go the host feel and who TechNet is but I did want to first start by saying that we're here in opposition to the red tour pair bills we've heard a lot of conversations here today so I'll try not to repeat what's been said before me but I think something that's resonated with me is something that you heard early on here is this is legislation in search of a problem if the problem that we're seeing here is a concern for consumer choice I think that has been demonstrated today that there is consumer choice you can go to your original manufacturer to get a repair you can go to an authorized dealer to get a repair or you can go to an independent repair shop to get a repair there's plenty of consumer choice consumers can choose which electronics they buy and they can choose whether if they don't like certain manufacturers to choose out there once in the future but the reality is that some of the people that you're hearing from today greatly seek to profit off of this legislation being passed second if another conversation that we've had today is about a waste and recycling I don't think that's really the intended goal I think it's an additional talking point but if we do have concerns about a waste and recycling in the state then we should have be having a conversation on how best to improve our waste and recycling programs this legislation has been filed in over 21 stays in no state has passed this legislation and that's for a reason including several of your neighboring states which have looked at this including Vermont which I know was mentioned earlier but I think it's worth noting that they conducted a four month taskforce and ultimately that report resulted in no legislation being filed the next session I guess I want to conclude just by mentioning that Massachusetts has always prided itself in being pro innovation and passing this legislation would send the unintended message to the business community that if you innovate and you create that you no longer have that value to yourself and that is allowed to be shared with others so I encourage the committee to think thoughtfully about this before advancing this legislation thank you thank you via testimony any questions for individual there being none thank you very much for your time next up is Dan Jaffrey I think that's how you pronounce it Jaffe good afternoon chairman Paul Henne and also mr. chan we give a little history of myself I'm electrical engineer from way back I've been in the industry of computers for over 35 years presently I do I'm semi-retired and eventually will be fully retired in my efforts on my way out the door I want to be sure that education is passed forward so I spent a lot of time on a form called iFixit in fact I am so desired I get over five hundred million five hundred thousand hits per month so I have a million a month and that's actually on the low side so my answers to those people who are desperate to get their equipment be fixed are often used to help them out you've heard a lot of discussion for a lot of different people here for and against this bill I am personally very much for it because in truth you're getting a lot of disinformation from the opposing group there is no opportunities for a lot of this equipment to be repaired independently as they claim these pieces of apparatus are then collected by the independent and shipped off to a manufacturer they're not repaired locally Apple is a good example an authorized independent will be picking up the equipment some minor things might be done or the majority of the repairs are sent off so that's nonsensical as far as the devices themselves a lot of them today now have what's called DRM digital rights management in protecting the individual elements of the device example batteries and the display assemblies so that you can't use just any display or any battery in fact you can take two exact phones let's say 11s iPhones 11s you take the battery out of one and put it in the exact in together you will it will not be recognized by that other phone even though it's named real Apple and that gets into that DRM because each element in that phone is ID'd only to that phone so you came and use a real iPhone battery from one phone to another phone which is ridiculous our industry collectively is in dire need of being able to have access to the appropriate equipment to first diagnose to to get the parts and to also be able to repair the device as well as the information some of us make the effort to learn a device by buying one and tearing it apart and then documenting it which is in third hand versus first hand and we really need to get off to that realm because we really want to prepare these devices for the benefit of the consumer I handed you a little document there regard in regards to carbon carbon is the big question here as you know carbon in many different elements is becoming an outfall fault into our environment and the question of causation of carbon is is the most important thing and if these devices aren't fixed then you're adding more carbon into our environment I hope that answers your questions thank you for taking time any questions from the membership debris none thank you very much thank you I got the Lewis Rosman from Rosman Group Inc hi my name is Louis and I run a repair shop in New York City before I get started I think it's important to address a point that mrs. Fisher just brought up which is that there are many people that are seeking to profit from this legislation and I agree that it's an important point I think it's important to look at who paid to be here today versus who is being paid to be here today when looking at who is opposing the legislation and who is in favor of that legislation that being said let's just go back to general idea that I have which is that law is downstream from culture culture happens first now about three and a half years ago I made an educational video showing you what to do if you have water spilled into a Macbook and it gets in the trackpad area I showed how to replace a fuse that blue in this customer's case that their keyboard and trackpad didn't work and three months later I heard from a law firm of Co Patrick and Townsend asking on behalf of Apple if I would take this video down why do I bring this up I bring this up because the appliance lobbyists over there said that this is a solution in search of a problem however I don't often see people paying $1,200 an hour to create when there's no problem there is a problem which is that when I show you where a fuses in a product I can get in trouble for that there were also individuals that brought up that authorized repair is very good in it does the job very well but then I'd also bring up the question as to a cbc news piece that came out last year where there was a bent pin in a cable of a laptop and they wanted $2,000 to fix this i fixed it on camera in 30 seconds by bending back the cable in when it comes to the video games my console manufacturers if authorizer pair is so good there why is it that if the video plug breaks on your Playstation that the authorizer pair time is three to six weeks to fix that when I can teach a 16 year old how to do that job inside of five to 15 minutes the issue here is that the culture has changed but the law has stayed the same the laws that are being used to say that I shouldn't have access to document that says where the fuses or if I show this where this keyboard fuses that I could be in trouble and have my business in jeopardy is a law that was created 50 70 90 years ago when the culture was different back then if you open your refrigerator you often open your television there's a schematic there that tells you how to do all of this I is normal person not even a repair shop owner could call it the company and say can I get this thing from my vacuum on my radio or you could just go to Radio Shack and get it now you have to see how it is today or if you have a macbook air and the SMC chip that reads your battery and can tell what your battery percentage is dies I can't replace that chip easily because it has firmware on it if I try to read that firmware it would the chip will stop working it's very similar to this TV show called 24 where Jack Bauer would interrogate terrorists and if the right he's like where's the bomb the terrorists would take a cyanide pill and go you're never gonna find out the chip does that it erases itself this is something that was unheard of 50 or 70 years ago but the laws have not evolved I think that the law needs to evolve to keep up with the technology and the last excuse that I heard was this has been denied in every state why Boston why Massachusetts would not have been a great attitude to have 250 years ago that's it Thank You Vera Thank You Leah testimony any questions from the members senator Feeney Thank You mr. chairman thank you for your testimony although I think Chloe would have been able to help Jack Bauer figure anything you mentioned you said if you show I believe you use the example of a fuse if you show consumer where that fuse is or if you you know figure that I don't care that that you could essentially be in trouble your business coming in trouble are there stories of independent repair shops that are contacted by manufacturers and that do get sued or you know in trouble could you just be elaborate on that or what your fear is that that could happen to you my fear in terms of it happening to me is that Isis replied saying if you want this video down don't call me from your law firm file a public DMCA claim or you have to say what the problem is that creates the PR nightmare of them having to say we don't want our customers to know or refuses they never did because of public backlash but realistically speaking at any given time they could go through with it and they would probably win the case I've heard of other companies being contact similarly there are people here who post on iFixit answers I fix it as a business that has been contacted several times over things on their website although I don't have exact details to it and they're not here to speak on it but it's something that we all live in fear so you post a video and then you get contacted by an attorney yes representing about gotcha and what is the what does that attorney tell you you liable they're gonna sue you they tell you just trade secrets right this that and the other and the thing that's interesting to me is the document that showed on screen it's essentially something that's already sold to you so when you buy the Machine you can tell where that is that just by measuring it's simply sold to me in a different form if it's sold via schematic versus via the actual product it would be like if I sold you a book in Latin and then somebody else gave it to you in English you already have the book in fronting it's just confusing you could easily transmitted difficulty Morse to say translate it to Latin to English if you'd like to using an online translator it's just a pain in the ass okay thank you thank you thank you for your time next up is a panel we have gay Gordon Nathan Proctor Roy should should carry the representing open block chain electronics recycling in the repair Association yeah yes did we get everybody right yes all right so go first hello everybody my name is Nathan Proctor I work as the national campaign director for the right to repair for US PIRG which is the kind of parent organization for mass burg I brought a written testimony I'm not going to go through it I kind of want to just a couple things that we've heard so far you know just to clarify a couple things I mean you've all heard the arguments now you know that this is an important issue for them for environmental advocates you know it's an important issue for small businesses you know it's an important issue for consumer advocates but be now you face a difficult set of contradictory you know fact landscapes about what this means and what it will do in the world and I think that Lois put it really well that what's happening is that the companies that make our stuff are trying to change the social compact about what it means to own something and what their what they have to provide us as owners of products whether that's a cell phone or a computer or a washing machine or a tractor do we have the right to use that as we see fit or do they have to protect us from making bad choices or from you know unintentional decisions that we might make on our own and to me this is that's just not the social contract that we set up you know Apple sold me the phone and now I own it John Deere sells in the tractor and then I own it you know they're not in charge of making sure that I don't accidentally run into my garage with it they don't that they're not expected to shut off the engine if I was to drive it in the wrong part of the whatever right we are in charge of our own actions but we don't control our own stuff a couple of things I want to clarify we talked to a couple times about authorized repair and authorized repair networks as being a way of training and giving data you should you know I'm it's too bad that we don't have one of those contracts I could probably show you a contract that whirlpool would send out for example for how to become an authorized whirlpool technician it's 40 pages there's nothing about having to know anything about fixing you know machinery in there it's all about what kind of truck to drive what kind of uniforms to wear how much you're allowed to charge manat it's not information it's a contractual agreement to join and be beholden to the interests of that company so when we say authorized repair we mean manufacturer controlled repair people should be able to do what they want with the stuff that they buy one other thing is that we talked a little bit about you know basically having access to repair information as being the same as being having access to be able to overrun security measures and that's just having access to hardware information and having the ability to break cryptographic software locks are like completely unrelated and I would I would love to elucidate that more if you guys are interested but I'm running out of time and I wanted to honor the time to again thank you so much chairs for letting me speak hello mr. chairman Chairman's and members of the committee rep Rogers pretty much stole my entire presentation so I'm going to wing it a couple of things that came up is that OMS are selectively deciding that they want to be responsible for us as customers every document that they present to you says otherwise every contract of sale every warranty and every end-user License Agreement says they're not responsible they disclaim absolutely everything up to the limit step by set by Massachusetts state law which I believe is simply a test of gross negligence so unless they are grossly negligent they are not responsible for your safety they're not responsible for your enjoyment and they're not responsible for anything that you might do these are the emissions laws or any other laws you as the person have those responsibilities for example if you are texting while driving and you get a citation you get the ticket not Apple and not GM so if you keep in mind who owns it and who's responsible almost every thing that you will hear in opposition essentially makes no sense because they are being very selective about what they want to claim as their responsibility in fact I would say the only selectivity test is based on money if they can force you to buy only their repair services at the prices that they set and block other repairs they will be able to control how you purchase and how often you have to purchase a replacement now one of the big problems is that we've done some studies since the last time I came before you that basically confirm that 90% of the products and currently are not repairable outside of the OEM ninety percent we're talking ninety percent of all the appliances ninety percent of all the computers 90 percent of all the farm implements 90 percent of televisions you can't in fact I think it might be a hundred percent on TVs it's a very very bad situation it has only gotten worse and there's not much worse for it to get because we're no longer able to fix the things that we buy which means we can't resell them either so there's a lot of problems with here I'm very proud that we actually had twenty five states overall since we started with our first bill in 2014 and I'm really proud of us as an organization we are all volunteer everybody that's here today paid their own way to get here they took off time from work and they believe in this strongly enough that they showed up with no paycheck so I really think that we are doing what we're doing because we believe in it we are here as consumers advocating for all consumers yes some of us have repaired businesses I don't I don't I don't make a dime on on any of this stuff some people here do some don't they're just passionate they want to be able to continue to repair things for consumers as we've always done so I thank you very much [Applause] hello and Thank You mr. chairman and members of the committee my name is Roni sukhiya I'm resident of Lexington mass and I run a company called trade loop which for 22 years we've been a service business for the electronics recycling industry I don't repair goods I don't have a vested interest here other than I see what happens in my customer base and it upsets me and I'm gonna talk about something new today I think that give you something new to think about so just to say all of the things you've heard early obsolescence is a big problem not just in the sector it's a problem for the viability of the reuse portion of the sector many of my customers end up going out of business because of this problem and it's a probably a contributing factor to a great extent in the general waste problem as well but I'm going to talk about something else blockchain so I have a running alliance called the open blockchain for asset disposition Alliance which has about a hundred members now all of the leaders in our industry including all the trade associations the compliance organizations like Siri who's responsible for the recycling responsible recycling standard that most of the world's recyclers use we've a never ledger which is the leading blockchain company we've received a grant from the D OE to set up a lithium-ion neisha lithium-ion battery recycling program nationwide because we only collect 5% of those and they contain cobalt and lithium which are of national defense interest because we only get them from China as well as a grant in Barcelona a lot of stuff so fortune 500 has adopted blockchain without going into the technology itself it's almost every single fortune 500 company now has a team doing blockchain and the manufacturers are no exception Seagate is the one I'm going to use as an example of how this can go wrong for us not because Seagate's bad in fact I think they're one of the good ones but the farthest ahead they produced a technology which they're now embedding and all new drives which is essentially a fingerprint they call ew d connected to the blockchain so that later on that drive can be checked for authenticity and no plans announced as to what that check will do but let's look at GM and OnStar okay everybody knows when you use OnStar if you are caught for speeding or if I rather police you know scars stolen or let's say you don't make your lease payments they have the ability to shut the car off remotely so you can see where this technology that Seagate is the first one to implement is going to lead the manufacturers will have the cryptographic ability to talk to that device for the rest of its life long after it's left their control and they will have the ability to shut that device off or prevent it so imagine you with Internet of Things IOT and 5g coming everything is going to be connected all of it to the blockchain so now you buy a toaster on eBay and it stops working because you're not authorized that said this is a big problem like you folks we're talking about it's the end of ownership as we possibly know it technology is moving much faster and the problem is going to get much worse and the only solution we can't is legislation we need to get in front of this issue so thank you thank you for your testimony any questions from the membership there be none thank you very much for your time for dedication of the audience we're down to a five sign-up sheets and no individual no Panos if anyone wishes to testify please oh there's another sheet all right six we have six that feeling like it's Sesame Street six sheets all right Walter Alcorn from consumer technology associations next good afternoon mr. chair appreciate the opportunity to testify my name is Walter Alcorn I'm the vice president for environmental affairs at the consumer Technology Association I just want to take a couple of minutes to address a couple of the environmental related issues that I've heard as reasons to support this legislation and by the way the consumer Technology Association we represent more than 2,000 companies in the manufacturing retail and installation of consumer technology primarily consumer electronics companies so so my two points with us first of all we agree that waste is an issue but it's been some time since e waste was a fast-growing part of the municipal waste stream in fact according to you know it's the US EPA we are now the fastest declining part of the municipal solid waste stream and it's driving me crazy because they only have data to 2015 but hopefully as they continue to track that they'll show that continued deceleration of e-waste generation more specifically though to this legislation I've also heard some people claim that if you don't pass this legislation then we're gonna see a lot of devices going in the trash going into landfills one of the things that we do at CTA every couple of years is we do a comprehensive survey of consumers and ask them what are they doing with their devices when they're done with them are they going to reuse are they throwing them in the trash what are they doing with them and here's what we found we've heard mostly today from folks talking about mobile devices so I'll just stick to those data only two percent of US consumers say they are throwing away their device their mobile device whenever they're done with a two percent what's happening much much more commonly and this won't be a surprise is people are trading them in there's value in these mobile devices and they're also giving away to friends and family they're also selling them on online and sometimes in person the reason that there's value in these devices is because they are being reused there's not very much recycling value smart phone to be honest materially it doesn't have that much really good stuff in there anymore you really have to be a pretty high-end recycler to get good stuff out of what's in the phone these all have value because they're being reused so what I think it's important to understand is this is not these are not devices that are going into landfills they're actually going back into the reuse market and being used again and I do understand there are people that want more of that business I get it until they understand but saying that these things are going to landfill is not a reason to pass a legislation like this thank you thank you via testimony any questions from the members debris none thank you very much for your time we're Brad module go from aim good afternoon my name is Brad MacDougall I serve as vice president for government affairs at aim associated industries of Massachusetts submitted written testimony so I will dispense with the full reading of that but just wanted to come before you today for highlighting not only our concern and our continued concern on this bill but just wanted to highlight in particular that as a representative of over 3,500 companies and the issue that this represents the language that's in this bill in putting a spotlight on the impacts on the broader employer community than those that have already been talked about for the last couple of hours here and that our concerns broadened to you know chip makers microchip processors people that I that make things relating to robots industrial manufacturers so there is a much broader array of Massachusetts employers from the Berkshires to the North Shore Fall River that we work with on a daily basis that we've talked to that have expressed concern about this so again like all any other bill would be happy to discuss any of those particular concerns or instances but very much happy to continue to work with you and share information relating to the bill thank you very much for your time thank you Peter Simoni questions from members represent of dom so i may ask a question that you're not able to answer but i didn't own it I wanted to ask a manufacturer the question can you give us a sense of what percentage of profit is based in the maintenance contracts that companies give to consumers or offer to consumers when they buy the products yeah I don't know the exact answer to that it's definitely another market place but it's it's something I can do some research on and get back to you that'd be great thank you any other questions members I think we you're a testimony and you can give permission to be helpful absolutely German Brian actually reminded us again that committee does take written testimony so anybody who do not feel like coming up when one prefers happening in writing please do my email box is suffering because it's a needs more stuff in it so next up is Ming Chau associate professor from Tufts University good afternoon representative Chan senator Feeney the committee thank you so much so my name is Ming Chao and I'm associate teaching professor at Tufts University and I've also been teaching cyber security for 15 years yes the fact of the matter is anything hardware or software can be reverse engineered people are going to find out and they will find out we break stuff all the time to unravel the truth security and Technology have almost no geographical borders so other countries Ukraine they don't care about our lives here other countries they don't care about our lives here they're just going to help them date it's going to break stuff what's amazing is and there's already a proliferation of information on hacking that includes documents videos source code custom firmware custom software from what are the things that other parties out of participants I've talked about today including John Deere video game consoles webcams medical devices all publicly available washing machines even that information all publicly available list goes on where can you find all this github personal websites YouTube ok details of insecurities of such devices already exposed on showed in plenty of articles have been written on it once the details are out sure you can do a DMCA violation on it but the informations are how is already hard to get back again most devices will also not look what security in mind okay security by obscurity is not the answer we're gonna find out somehow in some way thank you for your time thank you for your testimony any questions from membership there being none thank you very much next up is TS Sutton from the track and engineering manufacturer sociation good afternoon chairman Chan Feeny and members of the committee I'm Tia Sutton here today on behalf of the truck and engine manufacturers association or EMA we represent the world's leading manufacturers of commercial vehicles as well as on and off highway engines used in several applications including trucks buses and construction and farm equipment bills today that we are discussing broadly defined digital electronic product as such they'd apply to all the products manufactured by EMA's members and it allow anyone to access and change the micro processors on engines vehicles and equipment that control critical safety emissions and performance systems that result in significant adverse unintended consequences to the products manufactured by EMA's members such digitalwrite to repair legislation simply is not needed for farm and construction equipment commercial vehicles or the engines that power them farm equipment manufacturers and dealers as we've already heard have committed to making service and repair information available to end-users by 2021 and on highway vehicles are already covered both by existing state law and an MOU signed in 2015 further federal EPA regulations already require that engine manufacturers make the same service information available to aftermarket service service providers as they do to their dealers the bills just go too far but create unnecessary confusion complications burdens and risks for users and manufacturers alike and lead to significant adverse safety environmental and security impacts correct use of service information such as diagnostic and repair tools on the complex machinery manufactured by EMA members requires highly trained and skilled personnel allowing unfettered access to service information to untrained individuals will undermine the integrity of the equipment and allow for safety features like braking systems and anti rollover controls to be altered and compromised will also increase the likelihood that untrained personnel will unintentionally or intentionally illegally alter or disable federally mandated emission control systems and such illegal tampering is increasingly occurring today especially on farm and contractual construction equipment and trucks EPA recently announced a national initiative to respond to numerous instances of engine tampering across the country some of which include the use of software that alters or disables digitally controlled emission technologies tampering contributes substantial excess pollution that harms public health and air quality and allowing access to software controlling federally regulated systems also exposes owners and operators to both civil and possibly criminal liability for tampering the Bo's failed to contain any safeguards or restrictions to prevent or mitigate the risk of cyber security incidents widespread and unfettered access to service information increases the opportunity for hackers to improperly obtained or tamper with such information we've already seen news articles describing instances of hacking on cranes and other large off-highway equipment the bills will just make those efforts easier for all these reasons you may request that any digital right to repair bills clarify that all on and off highway engines vehicles and equipment are expressly excluded they're not the type of consumer goods that appear to be the focus of the bill and already are covered by existing state and federal laws and manufacturer commitments they'll create enormous safety environmental and security risks and liability exposure so I will wrap up since my time has expired but we really just want to highlight the concerns that we have as well as the concerns that could occur here in the state of Massachusetts take any questions you may have thank you as soon we have your written testimony okay so any questions for members there be none thank you for your time thank you yeah by Jacqueline Gonzalez from Power Mobile good afternoon my name is Jacqueline Johnson Gonzalez Johnson I'm coming here on behalf as a consumer but I'm also speaking on behalf of my husband who is a repair technician for the last eight years and we rely on that business but most importantly we rely on making our customers happy anywhere you go to fix your cellphone at Apple if people - t-mobile if you go to Verizon the prices are extremely high sorry I'm kind of nervous because I wasn't really supposed to be speaking but as a mother of three children um and as an owner of a business cell phone repair we have all the newest phones we have the iPhone XR all these new phones that Apple is coming out with the newer the device the most likely we won't be able to repair your device the iPhone XR I broke two of them in the last three months and as a cell phone repair business owner it's really like it hurts my pride to have to walk into a Apple and fix that phone because I know that one I have to pay $400 just for just for the repair when I can buy that screen if you guys pass this law for about a hundred and eighty dollars for the iPhone XR when I walked into Apple with all three of my phones they didn't repair them they just got rid of them and gave me a new phone and a new phones great but I had to back it up I had to travel two hours home because I was the nearest Apple with no service because I couldn't upload it with Apple to get my cell phone service back on also they were repairable they were repairable and people are saying that about all the recycled parts we have bins and bins fools full of phones that need to be thrown away so that's probably why they're not in the landfills yet but you can only use so much you can only use so much product from those phones you can only use the camera or the lens or the screen and then the casings going in the landfill and in behalf of a consumer it's it's really unfair that you know we have to take time off to work to make an appointment with Apple when if you come to our store we'll have a fix for you in 15 minutes lower the price not working you know for overtime hours just to pay for that new phone when we could have fixed it for you for $200 including the part and labor and I think that you know in everything that we're trying to do help you know families who are struggling to even pay their rent phones are what we rely on no matter what so for them to be able to have a quick place to fix their cell phone is is what should really matter you know it's everything's for profit in this world everything's for profit you can make your own Chinese food instead of going to a Chinese restaurant like that's what everyone's doing to save money and we need to help our consumers and help people who have children who use device you know your children use devices all day late they don't even play with toys anymore and every time my child breaks a phone it's cheaper you know if I go to a mom-and-pop shop to fix the phone not because I want to outsell Apple or you know but it's I brought the phone I paid so much money for the phone we want to keep the phones and we don't want to have to go buy a new iPhone XR or something else for way more when we break that phone and there's no way to repair the new phones thank you for taking the time to come down in new patience to testify any questions from the panel you're a nun thank you so much next up is Nik next up is uh I can't read this song Zimmerman that's sorry Sam Sam sorry they got the they got the essay and I can't read the rest of it thank you for taking time to come down so good afternoon my name is Sam Zimmerman I am just a hobbyist and the consumer and I'm here and I just wanted to say that I would not be in the state of Massachusetts if it weren't for being able to repair devices since I was a small child you know I I had always enjoyed tinkering with things and repairing any device that you know my friends had that would break or something like one time my friend had a gameboy and the the backlight had went out and I was actually able to fix that by buying parts on eBay but nowadays things are kind of moving more towards as other people have talked about the software lockouts so you know back you know in 2014 or so I could buy parts for my Samsung Galaxy s4 and I could just pop the back off replace the battery and it would be super super simple to do you know it cost me like $15 and I could just do it in five minutes but now you know I have a Samsung Galaxy S 10 which is different in that the screen is like glued on and all the components are very difficult to get to and there's there's guides online on how to do this but you can never really know now if those software controls are going to be in place and preventing you from doing this so you know you put the new screen on you spend two hours you know being super careful making sure that everything comes back together properly and then you get a message saying that your screen is not genuine or something and it just like shuts off and you can't use it so I just wanted to come out here from a hobbyist perspective and state my concerns about that and just that I would not have moved here for my work which is with if it weren't for my ability to tinker with them and kind of understand how they work Thank You via testimony any questions for the panel there being none I think of it taking time to come down all right we have William Hedberg who is the last one currently to sign up and of anyone I would say hasn't set up yet please do so to end of the table here thank you so I definitely wrote more than I have then I can fin two three minutes so I'm going to end up kind of winging this to truncate it and get it into other time limit I am a professional cybersecurity researcher but I am here in my personal capacity and I wanted to take a few moments to talk to you guys about the the cybersecurity implications of the right to repair and specifically to contradict the point that I heard made a moment ago by an industry representing representative in that the the assertion that the right to repair would harm cybersecurity specifically there are a lot of instances in which industry claims that they do not want to provide repair information because they assert that it assists hackers in in cracking their systems and jeopardizes consumers but the reality is that more often than not this is the opposite of the truth there's an example recently that comes to mind which is an exploit that was recently developed for basically every single Apple and iPad or every single Apple iPod and iPad device that is currently in use it's called checkmate with the 8ee at the end replaced with an 8 in a colloquial form and this vulnerability is actually it allows attackers to jeopardize the phone during a very early step in the startup process and with that an attacker can actually intercept phone calls text messages credit numbers all kinds of information and the thing here is that Apple is infamous for attempting to prevent release of information on the inner workings of their systems as a result this vulnerability wasn't discovered until very recently and the vulnerability is present as far back as the original iPhone because of the fact that Apple chose to deliberately obfuscate the semantics of the way that their early boot code worked they created a vulnerability that was not discovered until it was extremely widespread in that sense Apple actually jeopardized the consumers by not putting that information into the public so there's going to be a lot of discussion over time about the fact that right to repair is somehow dangerous to cybersecurity and I just like to make clear in my opinion as a cyber security professional that this is could not be further from the truth I'd like to thank the but to thank the committee and I'd also like to think of Senator Jalen for co-sponsoring this despite the fact that she's not here thank you very much thank you a taking time to come testify any questions from the membership your being done thank you for your time you're set thank you very much at this stage there's no one else to testify we're going to close a portion of hearing or open the executive session again so we close this portion here I need a motion to reopen the executive session representative it encloses the hearing motions opening session in a second second murder I served on the keyrings closed a succession is open for the sake of expediency not going to read the titles the bills but just a result of the vote from today on the following bills House bill 210 in favor zero against house both 295 10 in favor zero against house both 399 110 in favor zero against house boat 399 310 in favor zero against House bill three I'm sorry for 0 7 8 9 favor one reserved Right Said about two one eight eight nine to favor one reserved there right if the house can a Senate chair concurs as acceptable a vote we will instruct staff to release bills senator fede agrees with the house chair and the vote is accepted the committee staff show moved of those fourth as quickly as possible motion to close exam session some of motion closes necessary by Brooks represent Livingston second by brother served on all those hey hi hi guys habit as the other session is now closed thankful your time we'll see y'all next week or xx his next hearing

Channel: Louis Rossmann

Views: 123,463

Rating: 4.9676847 out of 5

Keywords: Right to repair, lobbyists, boston, state house, hearing, louis rossmann

Id: QHpXJzjin7k

Length: 146min 40sec (8800 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 22 2019