Connected televisions.

Existing law makes it a crime for a person who owns, controls, operates, or manages a satellite or cable television corporation to use an electronic device to record, transmit, or observe any events or listen to, record, or monitor any conversations that take place inside a subscriber's residence, workplace, or place of business, without obtaining the express written consent of the subscriber. Existing law requires a device that includes an integrated and enabled wireless access point that is sold as new in the state for use in a small office, home office, or residential setting to be manufactured to possess certain features or advisories, including, among others, protection on the device that requires an affirmative action by the consumer prior to allowing use of the product and an advisory for the consumer regarding how to protect his or her wireless network connection from unauthorized access. This bill would prohibit a person or entity from providing the operation of a voice recognition feature within this state without prominently informing, during the initial setup or installation of a connected television, either the user or the person designated by the user to perform the initial setup or installation of the connected television. This bill would further prohibit any actual recordings of spoken word collected through the operation of a voice recognition feature by the manufacturer of a connected television, or a 3rd party contracting with a manufacturer of a connected television, for the purpose of improving the voice recognition feature from being sold or used for any advertising purpose. This bill would prohibit a person or entity from compelling a manufacturer or other entity providing the operation of a voice recognition feature to build specific features for the purpose of allowing an investigative or law enforcement officer to monitor communications through that feature. This bill would limit the liability of a manufacturer to functionality provided at the time of the original sale of a connected television and specifically exclude liability for functionality provided by applications that the user chooses to use in the cloud or are downloaded and installed by a user. This bill would define terms for its purposes. This bill would prohibit a waiver of these prohibitions and authorize their enforcement by injunction or civil penalty in a court of competent jurisdiction by the Attorney General or a district attorney. This bill specifies that its provisions shall not be deemed to create a private right of action or limit any existing private right of action. This bill would provide that these provisions are severable.