Some detailed info from the Oakland Privacy Working Group list on the current status of various California state-level legislation as of today, Friday, August 16, 2024.
While mostly left-leaning, OP has a pro-civil-liberties focus, so while I haven’t reviewed all the particulars, libertarian assessments of the merits of these bills are likely to mirror those offered in this update.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
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OP Support Bills
SB 99 - Umberg - DJI Drones - Well, it was a longshot to get DJI drones banned in California, but it was entertaining that the chair of Judiciary wanted to try it. He failed, at least on his first try. However, he might be back. This was a super-late gut and amend so it was always a bit dicey. I think what happened is the firemen got mad and no one crosses the firemen in fire-prone California. DEAD.
SB 254 - Skinner - Media Access to State Prisons - Less ambitious than it was as the bill used to include county jails, but now it is CDCR facilities only, but does a great deal to provide greater media access which is really important. ALIVE
AB 459 - Kalra - RIPA Data - A rare loss for Kalra. This was a Department of Justice bill that was about giving them the power to penalize local police departments who send them traffic stop data without all the personal info stripped out. DOJ had to strip it out themselves and it was delaying the timely release of the data. The bill had DOJ asking for more frequent reporting from the bad police departments to punish them for sloppy reporting and hopefully make them clean up their acts. No go. DEAD.
AB 544 - Bryan - Jail Voting - A pleasant surprise as this bill has been trouble for all two years it has been kicking around. Greatly scaled down from a mandate for all local jails to enable voting for misdemeanor convictions and pre-trial residents to a pilot program in 3 counties, but still it is a start on the subject that rarely gets any legislative attention. Probably saved by the enthusiasm from Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties that volunteered to be pilots. Neither SF nor Alameda County did. ALIVE
SB 892 - Padilla - Automated Decision Making Procurement - This bill requires the state to establish anti-discrimination policies and procedures to apply to the procurement of ADS systems by the state. Basically builds off the state inventory that passed last year. ALIVE
SB 893 - Padilla - AI Hub - No Hub. Never was quite sure what this was, and now it will not be. We were disinterested, but Padilla added a clause to allow the CPPA to authorize the release of state data to system developers which seemed good, although the CPPA seemed to be lukewarm on getting that new job. They won’t. DEAD.
SB 896 - Dodd - State Use of Generative AI Oversight - Bit of a melange bill codifying much of what Newsom already wrote in an executive order on state use of AI. We helped break out a border between this bill and Padilla’s 892 as originally the two bills were on a collision course. This is much better. The bill basically requires various state bodies to consider possible dangers and write reports. It’s fine and it may do some good. Better to think about it in advance than not to. ALIVE
SB 942 - Becker - AI Labeling - This is the less confused bill about AI labeling which basically just asks GEN AI companies to attach labels to their products. Not sure what goes down here since the Wicks bill on the same subject also got out of Approps. Car crash. ALIVE
AB 1000 - Ashby - Connected Devices - This is another domestic violence turn-off bill that sought to extend protections beyond car tech to all kinds of connected appliances like smart home doors, windows, lights. AC, fridge etc. The author is right that this tech can be abused, but it may have been a little ahead of its time. Some confusion about what kinds of tech were included. DEAD.
SB 1047 - Weiner - Frontier AI - Kind’ve amazing Weiner has pulled this puppy along as far as he has, although Newsom signing it is not a gimme. The bill attempts to regulate massive futuristic AI systems that don’t really exist yet and create a public AI computing power entity to prevent large-scale AI from being completely dominated by 2 or 3 companies. A ot of hate in the startup community for this bill, some of it a bit hysterical. Weiner made most of the amendments we suggested in the early stages of the bill and so we came into support. He has probably amended it 9 times by now. Hardest working man in show business. ALIVE
SB 1069 - Menjivar - Inmates and Sexual Assault - This bill was inspired by FCI Dublin and empowers the Inspector General of the State of California to investigate sexual assault complaints in CA prisons. The bill is not gender-specific, but of course FCI Dublin is the proximate cause as well as the still existent women’s facility in Chowchilla. Senate Public Safety tried to bulk it up a bit from investigating to making policy changes, but that got pulled back to just investigating. Still good. ALIVE
SB 1120 - Becker - Medical AI Denials - This is a good bill that originated from the CA Medical Assn and requires a human review of any denial of medical care or treatment issued by an AI. It has had a bit of a rough ride, but happily seems to have gotten through. We seemed to be the most aggressive advocates for the CMA’s bill, go figure, but I am glad we advocated for it. ALIVE
AB 1725 - McCarty - Police Misconduct Settlements - Phooey. This bill has been floating around for like 5 years. We always support it and something always happens. Last time Newsom vetoed it. This time, death in Approps. All it does is ask local governments to post in one place that is accessible all the misconduct settlements they paid out for their police agency last year. They really really don’t wanna. DEAD.
AB 1877 - Jackson - Sealing Juvenile Records - This bill has the Probation departments automatically move to seal juvenile records when a kid in the system hits 18 if they qualify for sealing. Obviously a good thing since 18 year olds famously don’t do this themselves. The probation departments whined - a lot - but the bill survived. Yay. ALIVE
AB 2388 - Patterson - Information Practices Act - This was the Republican bill intended to stop government agencies from selling data for financial gain, like DMV does. I added some amendments in privacy committee to use this bill to update the definition of personal info in the IPA (which is soooo outdated). And somehow DMV or somebody killed this bill. Crapola. Now we are going to have to get the IPA updated some other way. So much for sneaky. DEAD
AB 2602 - Kalra - Digital Replica Use - A SAG-AFTRA bill to let actors, models and such to renegotiate contracts for use of their digital replicas that were agreed to without legal or union representation, since a number of people signed their life away before these technologies were clearly understood. ALIVE
AB 2877 - Bauer-Kahan - AI and Youth Data - This was a Bauer-Kahan bill which we kinda supported to be nice to Privacy chair after she asked. but it was trying to stop AI companies from snarfing up data from websites catering to children or children’s sections of general interest websites like Youtube (as happened). Bauer-Kahan amended the bill to include government agencies and the AI they deploy which is what I think caused the bill’s demise. DEAD.
AB 2930 - Bauer-Kahan - Automated Decision Making Systems - This is her second try at an anti-discrimination bill after AB 331 tanked last year. It has been a whale of a bill and OP has at various points been all the various versions of “support if amended” and “oppose unless amended”. We finally ended up neutral when she declined to take an amendment that would require that audits of ADS systems (at least in the private sector) have their discriminatory impact audits done by independent third parties. The bill seemed poised to die today with an Approps analysis saying it would cost a billion, zillion dollars but weirdly it didn’t die. Approps said there are amendments that scale it back, so we wait and see what is left. ALIVE. Not a gimme on the Senate floor or with the governor.
AB 3021 - Kalra - Miranda Rights - OP had a smaller than usual docket of criminal justice bills this year during blowback, but we supported this one which requires a Miranda-like warning before police “interview” family members of a person killed or gravely wounded by the police. The warning says clearly that they do not have to answer any questions to find out what happened to their loved one and that anything they say may be used against the victim or on behalf of the police. Family members said it was a super-important bill. It had a tough time and I was not optimistic it would survive today, but it did. ALIVE
AB 3030 - Calderon - Medical Office AI - A fairly minor bill rewritten by Privacy committee staff who wanted our support so we gave it to them. It requires disclosure when a medical office or hospital uses an AI to communicate with patients, including telling patients when it is an AI and providing clear instructions on how to get to living human beings. Probably the only Lisa Calderon bill we have or ever will support, but as I said it was totally rewritten by committee staff. ALIVE
AB 2355 - Carillo - Election Disinformation - This was the least annoying of the election disinformation bills. It just required labeling of political ads when they contain significant AI elements and allows the FPPC to enforce. The committee advanced this and the more aggressive Berman bill and I am confused how both could operate at the same time, but presumably there are amendments to come that will integrate them. Or all is chaos. ALIVE
AB 3139 - Weber - Car Tech Domestic Violence - There is an Assembly bill about forcing car companies to turn off car tech when domestic violence survivors tell them too and a Senate one as well. This is the Assembly one. The two bills have been fighting about how fast the tech should be turned off (immediately vs a vs two days) with EFF on one side and Assembly privacy on the other. We just want them to pass something. ALIVE
So that is 14-7 on Support bills
OP Oppose Bills
SB 733 - Glazer - Solitary Confinement - This made me feel good. Killing Glazer undermining bills is sweet. Glazer introduced this bill after Newsom vetoed the Mandela Act from Holden which would greatly restrict solitary confinement in the state. Originally he said it was to give the “governor something he could sign” and when read the riot act about being a weasel insisted this bill was never intended to undermine Holden’s bill. BS, but they let it advance as a “study bill” although we don’t need to study solitary confinement, we need to end it. Weasel got what he deserved, which is more perfectly just than the Legislature usually achieves. DEAD.
SB 1256 - Glazer - DNA - More Glazer defeat. This bill expanded DNA collection to people charged with soliciting minors for sex - twice. Expanding DNA collection is always bad, but the bill was so narrow and the targets so unsympathetic I was not optimistic it could be stopped. Happy as heck to be wrong. DEAD.
AB 1814 - Ting - Facial Recognition. This is huge. We were verging on hopeless about stopping this bill which basically said the only rule about facial rec is that it can’t be the sole source of an arrest, implicitly saying any other use is just fine. Hard bill to fight and we weren’t winning, but we did a hard press in Approps and killed it. Phil Ting is leaving so we are 2-0 on murdering bad facial rec bills from Ting. DEAD (!!!)
AB 2080 - Alanis - Age-Gating Porn - The bill we discussed at great length. It has died. So any and all age verification protocols on the Internet are handed over to AG Bonta to come up with regulations in 2027. DEAD
AB 2583 - Berman - Speed LImits - A traffic bill that we joined with Safer Streets LA in trying to kill. I was not optimistic as the bill was amended to only allow fairly small speed limit changes around schools (the concern was increased ticketing due to everchanging speed limits), but lo and behold, it did not get out. Surprised me and kudos to Safer Streets LA who did most of the work. But we echoed. DEAD.
AB 2655 - Berman - Election Disinformation - Dumb bill, but Newsom wants to sign it so likely he gets his chance. Orders social media companies to remove inauthentic material related to candidates or elected officials “doing things they didn’t do” or “saying things they didn’t say” within 120 days before or after an election, which is basically all the time. It seems unconstitutional on it’s face (which Common Cause should know but they have heavily leaned into disinformation destroys democracy in recent years) and Net Choice seems poised to sue, so likely what happens is the bill is stayed, thrown out and never takes effect. Expensive,but so it goes. Probably that is what the Carrillo bill also got passed, in case this goes belly up. ALIVE
AB 3211 - Wicks - On-Line Provenance. Crikey. The bill is a confusing mess. As best I can tell it mandates watermarking, which doesn’t work, asks generative AI companies to do impact reports (like they know what users do with their fake shit) and asks digital camera manufacturers to equip their camera products with provenance data. Not a gimme on the floor and someone (presumably the Governor) likely has to choose between this and the Becker bill.
The bill had the Judiciary Chair yelling at Wicks and I was with him. How this is not dead is unfathomable except that she is Appropriations Chair so they don’t kill her bills. God help us.
ALIVE. (WHY???)So that is 5-2 on the death wishes.