The year 2012 was a wild ride for tech policy. Right off the bat, the United States witnessed a heated debate over the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, which was ultimately defeated. Next up was the Cyber Information Sharing and Protection Act -- CISPA -- which passed the House but didn't make it through the Senate.
While none of those bills were signed into law, we have seen some pretty crazy laws passed in individual states and elsewhere around the world (for good reasons and bad). In the gallery above, Mashable has collected a handful of the most notable new technology laws of the year, involving everything from cybersex to driverless cars.
Know of one we missed? Share it in the comments.