Calif. Fiscal Hawks Clear Bills on CIPA, Age Assurance, Workplace Surveillance
California appropriators greenlit a plethora of privacy bills at Friday meetings. Assembly and Senate panels ticked through a laundry list of “suspense file” bills, including on age assurance, automated decisions, reproductive health, workplace surveillance and revisions of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA). The approved bills could get floor votes next.
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A location privacy bill won’t go anywhere, however. Despite support from the California Privacy Protection Agency, the Assembly Appropriations Committee held back AB-1355, which aimed to restrict certain entities from collecting, using and selling location data (see 2505020034).
Assembly appropriators also approved an age-assurance bill (AB-1355) that would require manufacturers to develop a way to have device owners enter the user’s birthdate or age, so that a digital signal about the user’s age bracket could be sent to app developers through an application programming interface (see 2504010001). Republicans didn’t vote.
With Republicans opposed, the Assembly panel cleared a workplace surveillance bill (AB-1331) that lawyers previously cautioned goes beyond measures in other states (see 2503030037). Appropriators decided to stall a different workplace surveillance bill (AB-1221) by holding it in the committee. Business groups condemned that measure as a job killer at a hearing last month (See 2504030019).
Assembly Appropriations additionally approved multiple bills by Privacy Committee Chair Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D), including AB-45 on reproductive health privacy, AB-56 to require warning labels for kids on social media, AB-1018 making rules for developers and deployers of automated decision systems; and AB-1064, which would make rules around using kids' personal information for AI training (see 2502210035). Republicans didn’t vote on AB-56, and they voted against the other three bills.
The committee also approved legislation (AB-1337) that would require local agencies to comply with the state’s Information Practices Act and bring more types of personal information into the law’s scope. And the panel advanced AB-853, which would require large online platforms to provide provenance data, explaining the source, creation process and ownership, along with other information, of content (see 2504290064). Republicans didn’t vote on either bill.
Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 6-0 for SB-690, which aims to reduce the large load of litigation based on CIPA, which is the state's wiretapping act. “This bill would allow businesses to engage in activity that would otherwise violate the existing consent requirements in the Wiretapping Act, so long as the activity falls within a business purpose under the” California Consumer Privacy Act, said a committee analysis.
Also, Senate appropriators voted 5-1 for SB-7 regulating automated decision systems in the workplace (see 2505220051). And lawmakers voted 5-1 for SB-238, which would require employers to annually report on all the workplace surveillance tools they use.
In addition, the panel voted 5-1 to approve a measure (SB-354) that proposes a comprehensive privacy framework for insurance licensees and their third-party service providers. Last, on a similar 5-1 vote, they approved SB-384, prohibiting algorithmic price fixing.