Updates to the Federal Common Rule were slated to go into effect last Friday, but were put on hold for the next six months. According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency and 15 other federal departments announced an Interim Final Rule that delays the effective date of revisions to the "Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects" until July 19. The press release did not explain why the changes were delayed. In comments provided to the Daily Dashboard, Carnegie Mellon University's Lorrie Cranor, CIPT, said, "The research community has been preparing for months for the new regulations, which includes adjusting the processes for screening and approving human subjects research protocols and changing the IT systems for managing these processes, as well as training researchers about the new processes. With less than two days notice, [institutional research boards] now have to roll back the changes to their IT systems. And then we will have to go through all of this again in six months." Editor's note: Privacy Tracker published a detailed analysis of the proposed changes. 
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