Communications: lifeline telephone service program.

Header changed from enrolled bill format (showing Assembly and Senate passage dates, blank Governor receipt date) to chaptered law format with 'STATE OF CALIFORNIA AUTHENTICATED ELECTRONIC LEGAL MATERIAL,' chapter number 347, and the Governor's approval date of October 6, 2025.

Page numbering changed from 'AB 1303' style to 'Ch. 347' style throughout the document.

Text reformatting including line breaks and indentation in the legislative counsel's digest and statutory sections, with no changes to the actual legal language.

Added Senator Rubio as a coauthor to the bill.

Fixed a double negative in Section 2891(a): changed 'No A telephone or telegraph corporation shall not make available' to 'A telephone or telegraph corporation shall not make available.'

Fixed a double negative in Section 876.5(c): changed 'cannot not be used' to 'cannot be used.'

Replaced 'his or her' with 'their' in Section 2891(b) for gender-neutral language.

Corrected multiple instances of 'which that' to 'that' throughout Section 2891 (subdivisions (a)(1), (a)(3), (d)(7), and (f)(1)).

Fixed garbled text in Section 2891(e): changed 'Every violation is a of this section is grounds' to 'Every violation of this section is grounds.'

Removed stray word 'access' from the introductory language of Section 2891(f).

Added the word 'its' after 'commission's' in multiple places throughout Sections 876.5 and 2891 (e.g., 'the commission's its staff'), which appears to be a drafting error introduced by this amendment.

Removed a duplicate 'SEC. 2.' line that appeared at the end of Section 2891(f)(2).

Removed the phrase 'as defined in Section 7284.4 of the Government Code' from subsection (a) of new Section 876.5, so that 'immigration authority' is now governed solely by the bill's own definition in subsection (f)(1) rather than cross-referencing a separate statute.

Narrowed the legislative finding in subsection (e) from 'people without social security numbers individuals not lawfully present in the United States' to only 'individuals not lawfully present in the United States,' removing the reference to people without social security numbers. This likely corrects a drafting error where two alternative phrases were accidentally left in the text.

Subsection (d) now reads 'may request, but shall may not require' instead of 'may request, but shall not require,' which appears to be an unintentional drafting error introduced in this amendment.

Section 876.5(d) was corrected from 'may request, but shall may not require' to 'may request, but may not require,' removing a drafting error where the word 'shall' was accidentally left in alongside 'may not.' The substantive meaning (providers can ask for Social Security numbers but cannot demand them) is unchanged.

The amendment history header (listing dates of prior amendments from March through September 2025), coauthor listings, and the original introduction date were removed in favor of the enrolled bill format showing passage dates by both chambers.

The vote, appropriation, fiscal committee, and state-mandated local program lines from the digest were removed, as is standard when a bill moves to its enrolled version.

New subdivision (f) added to Section 876.5 defining 'immigration authority' as any federal, state, or local officer, employee, or person performing immigration enforcement functions, and 'immigration enforcement' to include both civil and criminal immigration law enforcement efforts, including laws penalizing a person's presence, entry, reentry, or employment in the United States.

Section 876.5(e) federal preemption language changed from 'people without social security numbers' to 'people without social security numbers individuals not lawfully present in the United States,' explicitly tying the anti-preemption declaration to undocumented immigrants rather than anyone lacking a social security number.

Section 876.5(a) now requires a 'valid judicial warrant' instead of just a 'judicial warrant' as an alternative to a court-ordered subpoena before information can be shared with government agencies or immigration authorities.

Multiple instances of the redundant phrase 'the commission's its staff' were corrected to simply 'its staff,' and 'commission its staff' was corrected to 'its staff' throughout the bill text.

Added an entirely new section amending Public Utilities Code Section 2891, expanding the bill from solely protecting lifeline program data (Section 876.5) to also governing how telephone corporations handle all residential subscriber personal information.

Added new exception (11) to Section 2891(d) exempting information provided in response to a request under Penal Code Section 530.8(a), which relates to requests for subscriber information by law enforcement.

Defined 'lawful process' in Section 2891(f)(2) as 'an action taken pursuant to a court-ordered subpoena or judicial warrant.' This narrows the existing exemption for law enforcement access, which previously referenced 'lawful process' without defining it, potentially excluding administrative subpoenas or other non-judicial requests.

Added new exception (10) to Section 2891(d) allowing telephone corporations to provide lifeline customer names and addresses to public utilities solely for low-income ratepayer assistance outreach, with the receiving utility permitted to charge for search costs.

Cleaned up drafting errors in Section 876.5(c), removing the redundant phrase 'alone, alone' and changing 'could not be used' to 'cannot not be used' (the double negative appears to be a markup artifact; the intent is that aggregated data must not be usable to identify individuals).

Updated gender-neutral language in Section 2891, changing 'his or her' to 'their,' and made several style changes replacing 'which' with 'that.'

The detailed definition of 'applications, records, and data' was removed entirely. The old version listed specific protected data types including name, date of birth, service usage and call records, location at any time, address, account number, telephone number, and government-issued identification documents.

The core prohibition now protects 'any information provided by an applicant or subscriber to the lifeline program' rather than 'all applications, records, and data concerning an individual, made or kept by the commission.' This narrows coverage because it limits protection to information the person actively provides, excluding data that may be collected about them by providers or the commission without their direct submission.

Subsections were renumbered (old (b) through (f) became new (a) through (e)) after the definition subsection was removed. The federal preemption finding in subsection (e) was shortened but retains the same purpose of asserting the bill as a state law that may provide services to people without SSNs under 8 U.S.C. Section 1621(d).

Minor language cleanups throughout: 'could not be used' changed to 'cannot be used' in the aggregated data exception, and various grammatical corrections in the SSN provision.

The prohibition on sharing Lifeline participant data without a court order was expanded from covering only immigration authorities to covering any agency of a local government, state government, or federal government, as well as immigration authorities. This is a major broadening of who is barred from receiving the data.

The bill no longer amends Section 886 of the Public Utilities Code regarding telephone prepaid debit card registration. That provision was entirely removed, narrowing the bill to only adding Section 876.5 about Lifeline data privacy.

A new subsection (c) permits the commission, its staff, the third-party administrator, and lifeline service providers to use aggregated subscriber or applicant data for analysis, reporting, or program management, provided the data could not be used to determine the identities of the persons it pertains to, alone or in combination with other data.

The social security number provision was strengthened: entities may request but shall not require applicants and subscribers to provide a social security number 'in whole or in part,' meaning even partial SSNs cannot be mandated.

'Contractors' were added to the list of entities whose access to participant data is covered by the protections (alongside agents, successors, and assignees).

The federal preemption finding under 8 U.S.C. Section 1621(d) was reworded, and the fiscal committee vote changed from 'no' to 'yes' while the state-mandated local program designation changed from 'no' to 'yes.' Coauthors (Bonta, Caloza, Carrillo, Lowenthal, Ortega, Rogers) were added.

New Section 876.5 added to the Public Utilities Code establishing privacy protections for lifeline telephone program participants' applications, records, and data.

Prohibits the commission, its staff, the lifeline program's third-party administrator, and lifeline service providers (and their agents, successors, or assignees) from sharing participant data with immigration authorities without a court-ordered subpoena or judicial warrant from a state court judge.

Defines 'applications, records, and data' to include name, date of birth, service usage including call records, location at any time, address, account number, telephone number, and government-issued identification documents provided for identity or eligibility verification.

Permits but prohibits requiring applicants and subscribers to provide a Social Security Number to apply for or participate in the lifeline program.

Includes a federal preemption savings clause stating that the article affirmatively provides that an individual without a Social Security Number is eligible for services if they meet eligibility requirements, within the meaning of 8 U.S.C. Section 1621(d).

Section 886 text corrected from 'failed to do so, register' to 'failed to register' (nonsubstantive fix). The prepaid debit card provision was renumbered as Section 2 after the new Section 1.

State-mandated local program designation changed from 'no' to 'yes' because the new provisions create a crime under the Public Utilities Act, triggering reimbursement analysis under Article XIII B of the California Constitution.