It is now past the end of the road for the 2024 state legislative year, so we wanted to report back to you on what happened, what OP did, and what new laws are coming your way. It was the year of artificial intelligence bills, so we will start there and then look at our three traditional areas of focus: consumer privacy, policing and surveillance and governmental transparency. According to our records, OP intervened on 79 potential laws this past year. 20 bills we supported were enacted into law. 25 bills we opposed were defeated.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – About 60 bills touching on AI and machine learning were introduced. Only 16 became law and that is for two reasons a) many of the bills were somewhat incoherent representing the learning curve in understanding the tech and b) the appetite of the presiding governor was for labeling, transparency and preparation, but largely not direct regulation. Most of the successful bills focused on particular sectors where the technology is used, rather than broad marketplace oversight. Here is a summary of some of the more significant AI bills that were enacted:
Digital Replicas – AB 2602 (Kalra) protects actors and models who signed contracts providing rights to their replicas to corporations in the early days of the tech without support from an attorney or a union by letting those clauses get renegotiated. AB 1836 (Bauer-Kahan) protects the digital replicas of deceased individuals from being used in non-fair use ways without the consent of the estate. OP supported AB 2602.
Election-related AI Content – A trio of laws of addressed AI-generated deepfake content. OP supported AB 2355 (Carillo) which requires political advertisements that use AI content to label the ad. Two other laws go further; AB 2655 (Berman) requires social media companies to take down AI-generated election material during the period before and after elections when they get complaints and AB 2839 (Pellerin) provides a legal cause of action to sue for election-related deceptive deepfakes. A lawsuit filed by a right-wing satirist was successful in getting a preliminary injunction against AB 2839 on First Amendment grounds, and is challenging both AB 2839 and AB 2655.
GenAI Transparency – The CA AI Transparency Act (Becker) requires companies that generate AI material to mark it with a non-removable mark (in whatever way that is technically feasible) and to make available for free an AI detection tool. OP supported SB 942. A competing bill AB 3211 (Wicks) was considerably more wide-ranging and OP had significant concerns about that bill and opposed it. AB 3211 did not get off the CA Senate floor. A law OP supported AB 2013 (Irwin) will require generative AI companies to provide a high level summary on their website of where they got their training data.
Car Tech – As motor vehicles increasingly become computers on wheels, technology laws start to include traffic, roads and cars. SB 1394(Min), which OP supported, will allow domestic violence victims to get car tracking tech turned off if necessary for their personal safety. AB 1313 (Ashby) which OP intervened on to make sure its definitions were narrow, prevents the sale in CA of widgets that disable only driver safety devices. SB 1297 (Allen) adds the City of Malibu to the state’s speed camera pilot due to a series of speeding fatalities on the Pacific Coast Highway. Intervention by OP and other privacy groups made sure the Malibu cameras are subject to all of the privacy protections contained in last year’s speed camera pilot. A bill OP strongly opposed, AB 3138 (Wilson), will allow the digital license plates currently sold by Reviver to include optional GPS. Another highly publicized car tech bill SB 961 (Weiner) would have required new cars to all have speed warning devices. SB 961 was vetoed.
Self-Driving Cars (Autonomous Vehicles or AV) were also a subject of legislative interest, but only one law survived, AB 1777 (Ting), which addresses emergency vehicle access and public safety needs. Bills that dealt with AV safety (Haney), safety drivers for big AV trucks (Aguiar-Curry) and local control over deployment (Cortese) were defeated.
Medical AI – SB 1120 (Becker) will require medical professionals to review denials of medical care or services recommended by machine processing at health insurance companies. AB 3030 (Calderon) will require phone calls made by machines from health care orgs or physicians to identify the use of a machine and provide clear instructions for how to immediately transfer to a human being. OP supported both of these laws.
Sexual Deepfakes – A number of new laws extend existing laws regarding sexual images of both minors and of adults that are distributed to sexual images that are deepfakes or machine-generated including AB 1831 (Berman) and SB 981 and SB 926 (Wahab).
General AI Regulation – A law that basically codifies the Governor’s executive order regarding AI, SB 896 (Dodd) focuses on government agencies creating reports about the potential dangers and opportunities inherent in the large-scale use of AI, both in government itself and in the private sector. Several more ambitious bills focusing on impact assessments (AB 2930 Bauer-Kahan, SB 1047 Weiner) and procurement standards (SB 892 Padilla) did not go forward with AB 2930 stalling on the floor of the CA Senate and SB 1047 and SB 892 getting vetoed.
Some other laws that failed including transparency laws around AI use in the legal system (Lowenthal), a universal basic income program for CA workers whose jobs are replaced by AI (Low), a prohibition on using any data that belongs to a minor in a GenAI training set (Bauer-Kahan), and adding companies that buy or scrape large training sets to the state’s data broker registry (Bauer-Kahan).
Consumer Data Privacy
California Privacy Rights Act – SB 1223 (Becker) added neural or brain data to the category of sensitive information in the CPRA. AB 1824 (Valencia) added specific text to the CPRA to ensure that do not sell requests filed by consumers under the CPRA are not mooted by corporate mergers. OP supported both laws.
Consumer Protections. AB 2863 (Schiavo) the nation’s first click-to-cancel law, requires online subscriptions to be terminated with one click and prohibits dark pattern interfaces that make it frustrating to cancel online services. OP supported this law. AB 1971 (Addis) prohibits nonprofit administrators of standardized tests from selling the data they collect from students during test-taking. OP supported this law. AB 801 (Patterson) allows parents of minors to request that school districts delete all of a students non-official data after they leave the school district. OP supported this law.
AB 1900 (Weber) prevents companies from applying a “do not complain” clause prior to issuing a refund for an inadequate service or product. SB 611 (Menjivar) prohibits landlords from charging tenants junk fees for serving notices or choosing to pay by check. AB 2801 (Friedman) limits how landlords can keep security deposits and report on deductions they take on move-out. AB 2202 (Rendon) requires greater disclosure of cleaning fee charges on lodging rentals on AIRBNB, VRBO and other online services for accommodations. AB 2426 (Irwin) requires that digital goods that only license use cannot use the words by or purchase to describe their transactions. SB 1384 (Dodd) adds powered wheelchairs and mobility equipment to last year’s Right to Repair law.
Online Privacy and Safety – SB 976 (Skinner) will not go into effect for some years and likely will face a legal challenge, but the bill prohibits the delivery of algorithmic social media feeds to minors without parental consent and sending notifications to minors during school and sleep hours. Two laws focus on cyber bullying: AB 2481 (Lowenthal) requires priority status in filing complaints about cyber bullying incidents on social media to teachers and school principals and SB 1504 (Stern) requires responses in 36 hours or less for cyber bullying incidents that allege “severe or pervasive conduct”
Two laws address smartphones in schools. AB 3216 (Hoover) requires all schools to have smartphone use in school policies and SB 1283 (Stern) allows schools to limit social media use during the school day specifically.
Anti-Discrimination – SB 1137 (Smallwood-Cuevas) adds the term intersectionality to state anti-discrimination laws to provide ways to describe multiple identity discrimination when it occurs in the context of civil rights enforcement. AB 2319 (Wilson) and AB 3161 (Bonta) took aim at disparate outcomes in hospitals for Black, Brown and low-income people, in particular in the maternity ward. The laws strengthen implicit bias training, give the AG enhanced oversight capacity, and collect more demographic data from hospitals. OP intervened to make sure privacy protections were in place with regard to data collection. SB 957 (Weiner) adds enforcement capability to existing laws that require public health entities to collect LGBTQ-specific data.
DNA – SB 1099 (Nguyen) requires an annual report from the CA Department of Health on the collateral uses of the Baby DNA Bio Bank, which contains DNA from every baby born in CA, which is initially used to test for genetic diseases after birth and then kept for use in medical research. OP supported SB 1099.
Freedom to Read – AB 1825 (Muratsuchi) prohibits CA public libraries from removing any book due to viewpoint or content outside of the normal library selection processes. The bill specifically prohibits removal due to diversity/inclusivity of perspectives, protected characteristics or legal sexual content. AB 1986 (Bryan) asks the state Inspector General to investigate any books banned in CA state prisons when they get a complaint. OP supported both of these laws.
Rape Prosecutions – SB 1386 (Caballero) makes inadmissable in any sexual assault trial, in a CA courtroom, information that purports to attack a victim’s testimony about lack of consent or lack of harm. OP supported this law.
Some proposals in this area that failed to advance included proposals to ban Tik-Tok use by state employees (Sanchez), add RFID to drivers licenses (Ta), make attorney fees available to plaintiffs in “public nuisance” lawsuits (Ta), a statewide sit-lie law (Jones/Blakespear), requiring social media companies to allow all parental surveillance software to operate on their platforms (Stern), a ballot initiative to restore felon voting rights and a bill to provide grants to county jails to improve their inmate voting programs (Bryan), modify the Housing First policy to provide grants to sober housing projects (Niello), enabling more electronic monitoring of employees by employers (Pachecho), expand the state speed camera pilot program statewide (Flora), create legal liability for social media sites when drug sales happen on their platforms (Jones-Sawyer), prohibit the use of pricing algorithms trained on non-public data (Hurtado), prevent the use of paid services to opt out of data broker sales (Wilk), a ban on collusion and price-fixing in residential renting (Bennett), a tax credit for homeowners buying security cameras (Wallis), a state office of Tenants Rights and Protections (Haney), Medicare for All (Kalra), various proposals to extend food stamps, cash aid and unemployment benefits to undocumented Californians (Durazo, Santiago, Carillo and Hurtado), free community college for first-time college students in CA (Santiago), a state hotline for seniors afraid they are being scammed (Patterson), a limited legalization for therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs (Weiner), a warning label for social media users who choose to post anonymously (Padilla), a disability identifier on CA drivers licenses (Laird), a social housing pilot program (Lee), age verification for porn sites (Alanis), a prohibition on the sales of diet aids to minors under 18 without a prescription (Weber), safe RV sleeping sites on community college campuses for homeless students (Jackson), legal liability for social media platforms for lack of care for a minor (Lowenthal), inadmissability of restorative justice data in related criminal prosecutions (McKinnor), a requirement for all browsers to provide a global opt out preference signal (Lowenthal), and a requirement for public CA campuses of higher educations to open in campus work opportunities to undocumented students (Alvarez),
Policing and Surveillance
Property Crime – Broadly, a number of new laws were passed as a package to address retail and property theft. They included AB 1779 (Irwin), AB 1802 (Jones-Sawyer), AB 2943 (Rivas), SB 1416 (Newman), SB 1144 (Skinner) and AB 1960 (Soria). These bills may be partially or in some cases entirely mooted if Proposition 36 passes on the ballot in November.
Jails – SB 1353 (Wahab) adds the right to receive timely mental health care to the Juvenile Bill of Rights. SB 1132 (Durazo) allows county health officials to inspect private detention facilities, including those owned by Geo Group and Core Civic, for health and safety conditions. OP supported this law. SB 1069 (Menjivar) requires the state Inspector General to investigate cases of sexual assault in prisons. OP supported SB 1069. AB 2527 (Bauer-Kahan) establishes a right to fresh water for pregnant and post-partum people in jail and restricts the use of solitary confinement for more than five consecutive days for pregnant and postpartum prisoners. SB 1317 (Wahab) extends consent laws for prisoners before the administration of psychiatric medications. AB 1810 (Bryan) makes menstrual products available to prisoners without having to ask prison staff for them. SB 379 (Umberg) sets up a prisoner accountability letter bank program which lets prisoners write to those they have victimized as part of a restorative justice program within state prison.
Warrants and Wiretapping – AB 1892 (Flora) expands the wiretap laws to allow for a wiretap if there is probable cause for the possession of sexual images of a minor as assessed by a magistrate judge. SB 918 (Umberg) requires social media companies to respond, in some way, to law enforcement warrants within 72 hours of receipt.
Sideshows – New laws allow for a car to be impounded if an individual is arrested, or arrested but not taken into custody, for facilitating a speed contest on a highway or a covered parking facility AB 1978 (Sanchez) and AB 3085( Muratsuchi/Gipson).
School Safety – New laws calls for school safety plans for active shooters (AB 960 Mathis) and establish best practices for active shooter drills in schools to avoid traumatizing students (AB 1858 Ward). New laws were also passed regarding the use of behavioral restraints. Adolescent detention camps must report on the use of any behavioral restraints (SB 1043 Grove – the “Paris Hilton” law) and CA schools are prohibited from using prone restraint holds as a disciplinary technique with students (SB 483 – Cortese). OP supported SB 483.
Criminal Procedure – Two new laws focus on restoring defendants to competence so they can face criminal charges after mental health challenges (SB 1323 – Menjivar and SB 1400 – Stern). The bills seek to establish best practices for when it is in the interests of justice to restore competence and when it isn’t. SB 1161 (Becker) reforms juvenile court procedures. AB 2215 (Bryan) allows police to decline to take people into custody when arrested for quality of life crimes and instead choose to deliver them to a social services agency when they think that is the best thing to do.
Records – AB 1877 (Jackson) requires probation departments to automatically initiating sealing a juvenile’s records if they qualify for sealing once a juvenile reaches the age of 18. OP supported AB 1877.
Death Penalty – SB 1001 (Skinner) prohibits the death penalty for intellectually disabled people, should California ever begin carrying out the death penalty again.
First Amendment – SB 1287 (Glazer) requires college campuses to put in place rules regarding campus protests that ensure no student feels protests interfere with their ability to attend classes. AB 3024 (Ward) imposes criminal penalties for the distribution of hateful content on private property with the intent to intimidate or terrorize.
Proposals about policing and surveillance that failed to advance included proposals to classify some hate crimes as violent felonies (Nguyen, Villapadua), ban weaponized drones and robots (Weber) and phase out the use of Chinese-manufactured drones by police (Umberg), sanction police use of facial recognition technology(TIng), expand permitted requests for wiretaps and search warrants for hate crimes (McCarty, Umberg, Low), removal of an elected sheriff by a supermajority vote of a county Board of Supervisors (Jones-Sawyer), mandated police civilian police oversight boards in every community (Weber), prohibitions on some uses for police canines (Jackson, Pachecho), prohibitions on encrypting police radios (Becker), limits on the powers of school safety officers (Jackson, Smallwood Cuevas), bringing back the crime of loitering for the purpose of prostitution (Seyarto, Ta, Newman), a fentanyl “exception” to the CA Values Act (Sanchez), removing drones from AB 481, the state’s military equipment transparency law (Nguyen), tightening reporting requirements for RIPA traffic stops data (Kalra), providing more mental health care in state prisons (Haney), providing one guaranteed 30 minute confidential call with legal counsel for every prisoner in a local jail facility (Jones-Sawyer), increase penalties for protests that interfere with traffic (Sanchez), create a crime called the intent to commit package theft (Low), lower the interest rate on criminal restitution payments (Ashby), prevent the denial of prison visits from being used as a disciplinary measure in state prisons (Bonta), limit retention of automated license plate reader scans to 30 days (Lowenthal), add to search warrant justifications a reasonable suspicion that prostitution involving a minor is occurring (Gipson), loosen requirements for teachers and principals to report incidents at school to law enforcement (Kalra), require that the amounts cities and counties pay out for police misconduct settlements be clearly displayed on their websites (McCarty), authorize DNA collection for misdemeanor prostitution crimes (Glazer), end the use of ethnically differentiated police shooting target dummies (Bradford), create a Miranda-style disclaimer for family members of individuals slain and gravely injured by police officers prior to interrogations (Kalra), and mostly end solitary confinement in California state prisons (Holden).
Governmental Transparency
Brown Act – AB 2715 (Boerner) expands closed session limitations in the Brown Act to include general discussions of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Information Practices Act – AB 2723 (Irwin) and AB 518 (Wicks) both provide exemptions to the IPA, one for the Cradle to Career education database, the other for food stamp outreach.
Voting Rights – SB 1174 (min) prohibits any city or county in California from asking for ID at a voting station.
Reparations – AB 3089 (Jones-Sawyer) is a formal apology from the State of California for its participation in chattel slavery and segregation.
Other proposals that did not advance included anti-racism audits for state agencies (Jackson), making specific information about a former prisoners early release credits available as a public record (Dixon, Low), a statewide registry for evictions and rent increases (Wahab), an automatic court date reminder notification system (Bryan), making developers who use public funds subject to CA Public Records Act (Quirk-Silva), a requirement to make public records requesters state the reason for their request (Pachecho), open up adoptee birth certificates upon request (Eggman), make EDD data available for credit inquiries for low-income people (Low), provide free mailboxes for homeless Californians at state social services agencies (Durazo), let all governmental advisory bodies meet permanently by teleconference (Pachecho), process draft registration at the DMV (Archuleta), update the definition of personal information in the IPA (Patterson), create a state homelessness coordinator position (Jones_Sawyer), and expand media access to state prisons (Skinner).