Here Are EFF's Sacramento Priorities Right Now

California is one of the nation’s few full-time state legislatures. That means advocates have to track and speak up on hundreds of bills that move through the legislative process on a strict schedule between January and August every year. The legislature has been adjourned for a month, and won’t be back until August. So it’s a good time to take stock and share what we’ve been up to in Sacramento.

EFF has been tracking nearly 100 bills this session in California alone. They cover a wide array of privacy, free speech, and innovation issues, including bills that cover what standards Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) systems should meet before being used by state agencies, how AI and copyright interact, police use of surveillance, and a lot of privacy questions. While the session isn’t over yet, we have already logged a significant victory by helping stop S.B.1076, by Senator Scott Wilk (Lancaster). This bill would have weakened the California Delete Act (S.B. 362), which we fought hard to pass last year. 

Under S.B. 362, The Delete Act made it easier for anyone to exert greater control over their privacy under California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The law created a one-click “delete” button in the state’s data broker registry, allowing Californians to request the removal of their personal information held by data brokers registered in California. It built on the state’s existing data broker registry law to expand the information data brokers are required to disclose about data they collect on consumers. It also added strong enforcement mechanisms to ensure that data brokers comply with these reporting requirements.

S.B. 1076 would have undermined the Delete Act’s aim to provide consumers with an easy “one-click” button. It also would have opened loopholes in the law for data brokers to duck compliance. This would have hurt consumer rights and undone oversight on an opaque ecosystem of entities that collect then sell personal information they’ve amassed on individuals. S.B. 1076′s proponents, which included data brokers and advertisers, argued that the Delete Act is too burdensome and makes it impossible for consumers to exercise their privacy rights under California’s privacy laws. In truth, S.B. 1076 would have aided fraudsters or credit abusers to misuse your personal information. The existing guardrails and protections under the Delete Act are some of the strongest in empowering vulnerable Californians to exercise their privacy rights under CCPA, and we’re proud to have protected it.

Of course, there are still a lot of bills. Let’s dive into six bills we’re paying close attention to right now, to give you a taste of what’s cooking in Sacramento:

A.B. 3080 EFF opposes this bill by State Assemblymember Juan Alanis (Modesto). It would create powerful incentives for so-called “pornographic internet websites” to use age-verification mechanisms. The bill is not clear on what, exactly, counts as “sexually explicit content.” Without clear guidelines, this bill will further harm the ability of all youth—particularly LGBTQ+ youth—to access legitimate content online. Different versions of bills requiring age verification have appeared in more than a dozen states. An Indiana law similar to A.B. 3080 was preliminarily enjoined—temporarily halted— after a judge ruled it was likely unconstitutional. California should not enact this bill into law.

S.B. 892 EFF supports this bill by State Senator Steve Padilla (Chula Vista), which would require the Department of Technology to establish safety, privacy, and nondiscrimination standards relating to AI services procured by the State and prohibit the state from entering into any contract for AI services unless the service provider meets the standards established. This bill is a critical first step towards ensuring that any future investment in AI technology by the State of California to support the delivery of services is grounded in consumer protection.

A.B. 3138 EFF opposes this bill by State Assemblymember Lori Wilson (Suisun City), which will turn state-issued digital license plates into surveillance trackers that record everywhere a car goes. When a similar bill came up in 2022, several domestic violence, LGBTQIA+, reproductive justice, youth, and privacy organizations negotiated to prohibit the use of GPS in passenger car digital license plates. A.B. 3138 would no longer honor the agreement under A.B. 984 (2022) and reverse that negotiation.

A.B. 1814 EFF opposes this bill from State Assemblymember Phil Ting (San Francisco). It is an attempt to sanction and expand the use of facial recognition software by police to “match” images from surveillance databases to possible suspects. Those images can then be used to issue arrest warrants or probable searches. The bill says merely that these matches can’t be the sole reason for a warrant to be issued by a judge—a standard that has already failed to stop false arrests in other states. By codifying such a weak standard with the hope that “something is better than nothing”, and expanding police access to state databases, makes bill is worse than no regulation.

S.B. 981 EFF opposes this bill from State Senator Aisha Wahab (Fremont), which would require online platforms to create a reporting mechanism for certain intimate materials, and ensure that those materials cannot be viewed on the platform. This reporting mechanism and the requirement to block and remove reported content will lead to over-censorship of protected speech. If passed as written it would violate the First Amendment and run afoul of federal preemption.

A.B. 1836 EFF opposes this bill by State Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (San Ramon). It will create a broad new “digital replica” right of publicity for deceased personalities for the unauthorized production, distribution, or availability of their digital replica in an audiovisual work or sound recording. If passed, a deceased personality’s estate could use it to extract statutory damages of $10,000 for the use of the dead person’s image or voice “in any manner related to the work performed by the deceased personality while living” – an incredibly unclear standard that will invite years of litigation.

Of course, this isn’t every bill that EFF is engaged on, or even every bill we care about. Over the coming months, you’ll hear more from us about ways that Californians can help us tell lawmakers to be on the right side of digital rights issues.