The 2023 legislative season in CA’s state capital has come to a close. Oakland Privacy intervened on your behalf on over 65 bills (a world record), piping up in support, opposition or demanding changes. Our final batting average in sign/veto requests to Governor Newsom was 20-4 (i.e. 20 times the governor did what we asked, 4 times he did not). Our own sponsored bill, AB 1463 (license plate readers) stalled in Senate Judiciary, but will come back for a second try in 2024. It is 3 stops from the governor’s desk!
Some highlights and lowlights to follow:
New Laws:
SB 790 which will eliminate non-disclosure agreements for the purpose of public records in government contracts
AB 223 which will seal minor name changes in CA courts
AB 254 which will bring reproductive app information under medical privacy laws
AB 519 which will improve public records access for in-custody deaths
AB 665 which will give minors on Medi-Cal the same flexibility to obtain mental health care as minors with private insurance
SB 478 which will crack down on hidden fees for products and services
AB 360 which will end the use of excited delirium as a legal cause of death
AB 1418 which ends local ordinances that allow or encourage landlords to punish tenants for law enforcement contacts with eviction, lease denial or rental increases
AB 947 which adds immigration status as sensitive information under the CA Privacy Rights Act
AB 1194 which removes a loophole that allowed businesses to categorize reproductive health data as a “danger to life”
AB 302 which will provide an inventory of all the state’s automated decision-making systems
SB 296 which will require explicit consent for the share or use of in-vehicle recordings and prevent the manufacture of back doors to law enforcement in private vehicles
SB 244, a right to repair bill for California and one of the strongest in the nation
SB 362, a one stop data broker opt out system to be operated by the CA Privacy Protection Agency.
It was our honor to advocate on your behalf for these bills.
But no wrap-up of a legislative year is complete without a listing of what didn’t happen. OP also fought to prevent bad laws and to fix proposed awful ones. Here is some of that work.
Sit/Lie Bills (AB 257 and SB 31) were held in policy committees
AB 568 which would have distributed insecure RFID drivers licenses was held in policy committee
AB 74 which would have criminalized attendance at sideshows was held in policy committee
SB 580 which would have inserted traffic cameras on the front of schoolbuses was held in policy committee
SB 64 which would have lowered warrant requirements when the crime was classified as a hate crime was held in Appropriations
AB 642 which would have sanctioned facial recognition use for law enforcement use was held in Appropriations
SB 287/680 (introduced TWICE) would have created a vague private right of action against social media companies when kids have bad outcomes and was last held in Appropriations
SB 643 which would have set up some sort of school tattletale system to try to out potential school shooters was held in Appropriations
SB 646 a censorship bill that would have taken down reported explicit pictures of minors in only two days was held in Appropriations
AB 474 which would have ordered fusion centers to focus on Mexican gangs was vetoed by the governor.
Oakland Privacy was also happy to offer corrective amendments on:
SB 595 which sent EDD info to Covered California for marketing purposes, which received significant privacy-enhancing changes
SB 67, which removed police, emergency rooms and ambulance drivers from mandated reporting to HIDTA’s ODMap and limited reporting to fatal overdoses only.
Our four losses?
The governor did not sign AB 1306, which would have limited CDCR reporting to ICE when inmates are released from state prison on parole
AB 469 which would have created a state ombudsman for public records.
And the governor did sign AB 645, a 4-city speed camera pilot program
AB 1027, which authorizes social media company to hold actioned social media content for 90 days if it is related to controlled substances.
The 2024 legislative season will be starting in January and we’ll keep you posted as we root through another 2000 bills to protect your privacy rights!