Voluntary declaration of parentage.

Existing law establishes the Department of Child Support Services within the California Health and Human Services Agency and requires the department to administer all services and perform all functions necessary to establish, collect, and distribute child support. Existing law requires a person responsible for registering live births to provide a voluntary declaration of parentage and specified written materials to a woman giving birth and to attempt to provide to the person identified by the woman giving birth as either the only possible genetic parent other than the woman who gave birth or the intended parent of a child conceived through assisted reproduction. Existing law also requires the department to develop a form to execute the voluntary declaration of parentage. This bill would require the department to make the above-described form available as both a paper and an electronic version, as specified. Existing law requires a voluntary declaration of parentage to be in a record signed by the woman who gave birth to the child and by either the only possible genetic parent other than the woman who gave birth or the intended parent of a child conceived through assisted reproduction, and requires the signatures to be attested by a notary or witnessed. This bill would authorize a signatory or witness to sign a voluntary declaration of parentage using an electronic signature if certain requirements are met, including that the electronic signature is unique to the person using it and it is capable of independent verification. The bill would delay the operation of the above-described provisions until January 1, 2024.