'Surveillance Pricing' Bill Stalls; Calif. Legislators Amend Other Privacy Bills Before Final Week
Misinformation and amendments derailed a bill on data-driven pricing, also called “surveillance pricing,” that was nearing the finish line in California. After Senate appropriators last week narrowed the legislation to apply only to grocery stores (see 2509020025), Assemblymember Chris Ward (D) punted AB-446 to next year, he said in a statement Thursday.
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Meanwhile, California legislators added another exemption to a workplace surveillance bill (AB-1331) on Thursday. A proposed measure governing user requests to delete social media accounts (AB-656) was also amended to require platforms to delete a requesting user's personal information along with the account.
California legislators are quickly approaching a Sept. 12 deadline to pass bills. The Assembly and Senate didn't convene Friday and will next hold floor meetings Monday. Addressing colleagues on the floor Thursday, Senate President Pro Tempore Mike McGuire (D) predicted "some late nights next week."
The legislature sent a data breach notification bill (SB-446) to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Wednesday after passing it last week. Also last week, each chamber’s Appropriations Committee teed up several privacy and AI bills for floor votes (see 2508290005).
Ward had "introduced AB 446 to stop companies from charging higher prices based on personal information collected through surveillance technology," said the legislator, who spoke to Privacy Daily about his proposal last month (see 2508150039). "Unfortunately, misinformation from the opposition and amendments imposed by the Senate Appropriations Committee have weakened the bill to the point where I am not comfortable advancing it this year." Not wanting to advance "watered-down half measures," he pledged to "continue this fight when we reconvene in January."
Consumer Reports said Friday that it's disappointed the bill won't advance but will support Ward's 2026 efforts. "Californians should not have to worry that the personal information companies collect about them, such as their browsing history, location, or personal characteristics will be used to charge them a different price than their neighbor,” said Grace Gedye, CR policy analyst for AI issues. Consumer Watchdog on Friday also bemoaned the decision.
Legislators recently amended several other bills as well.
AB-1331 would still provide a worker with “the right to leave behind workplace surveillance tools” they are carrying. But under the amended bill, that wouldn’t apply if the “worker is required to use a workplace surveillance tool, such as a phone, for communication purposes for the job during off-duty hours.”
As in the previous version of the bill, AB-1331 also includes an exception for a circumstance in which an employee “is required to remain available during meals or rest periods pursuant to federal law or existing state law.”
The amended bill also clarifies a proposed rule about using AI-enabled surveillance. “The workplace surveillance tool in an employee-only breakroom or cafeteria shall not use generative artificial intelligence enabled video surveillance,” the bill by Assemblymember Sade Elhawary (D) now says. “The workplace surveillance tool may use artificial intelligence photo or video correction tools that do not have monitoring or surveillance capacity.”
Meanwhile, an amendment to AB-656 says that social media users’ requests to delete their accounts “shall constitute a request to delete the user’s personal information … and shall be processed in accordance with the requirements of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018.”
Also, the amendment clarifies that social media platforms must, when a “clear and conspicuous” button for deleting accounts “is clicked, provide a user with the steps necessary to complete an account deletion request, which shall include deletion of the user’s personal information.”
“If the social media platform seeks verification of the request to delete the account, that verification shall be done in a cost-effective and easy-to-use manner when the request … is submitted through preestablished two-factor authentication, email, text message, telephone call, or message,” the amended bill says.
The action of a user logging into an account that the person asked to be deleted shouldn’t revoke the deletion request, it adds.
Legislators also recently amended a measure (SB-7) on automated decisions by employers to remove workers’ right to appeal those types of decisions (see 2509030010), as well as a bill (AB-56) requiring social media warning labels to remove a private right of action and scale back its requirements.
In addition, a frontier AI models bill (SB-53) by Sen. Scott Wiener (D) was amended to strike a third-party audit requirement and raise the threshold for covered developers from $100 million to $500 million.
However, the Software & Information Industry Association on Thursday issued a statement condemning SB-53 as an “overly prescriptive and burdensome framework that risks stifling frontier model development without adequately improving safety.”