Georgia State House Representative Brent Cox Thursday was appointed to serve as leader of the House Technology and Infrastructure Innovation Subcommittee on Cyber Security.
Rep. Brent Cox was appointed by House Technology and Infrastructure Innovation Committee Chairman Todd Jones, who represents South Forsyth. As chairman, Cox will collaborate with other legislators from both sides of the aisle to enhance cyber security for state agencies and promote educational pathways for the career field.
“When I first decided to run that was a subject matter that was near and dear to my heart, and working with some colleagues within the state and also with some friends over in Israel,” Cox said. “It was something that I felt was needed within the state of Georgia, to ensure that our departments and agencies are protected. The private industry is protected with all of the cyber attacks and artificial intelligence that's used on both sides with machine learning, this is something that we've really got to be ahead of.”
Cox plans to work with the Georgia Cyber Center, along with members of the Israeli Government, in order to use their expertise to bolster the current condition of the state's cyber security.
“Locally, within Georgia and within the United States, we'll be working with some companies as well, to see where our weak points are,” Cox said. “We want to make sure that we strengthen those or at least put guardrails or umbrellas over the data to make sure that we're protecting said data within all the different industries and fields that we live around from healthcare to education to banking.”
Israel is known to be the best in the world when it comes to cyber security, according to Cox. He noted that combining efforts with Israel and the University of North Georgia will provide a wealth of cyber security knowledge that will pay off in the long run.
Also important to Cox is sharing the career and educational opportunity cyber security presents to young students in the state. Cox hopes to readily introduce cyberlanguage and programming into schools from kindergarten through 12th grade. He believes encouraging the security career path will allow the state to create its own workforce.
Technology-based legislation can be difficult to pass, Cox said, due to the speed at which the field advances.
“Creating legislation that would be organic enough that will evolve as technologies evolve, because sometimes you can create a bill and pass it and by the time it's created, it's no longer existent,” Cox said. “So we want to make sure that we see what the weak points are.”
Cox emphasized how the subcommittee is a bipartisan effort, pulling in both Democrat and Republican members since cyber security has “an impact on everyone”. Other members included on the subcommittee are Debbie Buckner (D-Junction City), Stacey Evans (D-Atlanta), Joseph Gullett (R-Dallas), Don Parsons (R-Marietta), Brian Prince (D-Augusta), Long Tran (D-Dunwoody), Marcus Wiedower (R-Watkinsville) and Bruce Williamson (R-Monroe). Chairman Todd Jones and State Representative Brad Thomas (R-Holly Springs) will also serve as ex-officio members.
Rep. Brent Cox represents District 28, which includes portions of both Forsyth and Hall counties. He was elected in November 2022 to the House of Representatives and is currently serving as the Secretary of the Technology and Infrastructure Innovation Committee and serves on the Agriculture and Consumer Affairs and Education committees.
