Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) , grants a consumer various rights with respect to personal information, as defined, that is collected or sold by a business, as defined, including the right to direct a business that collects sensitive personal information about the consumer to limit its use, as prescribed. Existing law defines "sensitive personal information" to mean, among other things, personal information that reveals a consumer's precise geolocation. Existing law, the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, approved by the voters as Proposition 24 at the November 3, 2020, statewide general election, amended, added to, and reenacted the CCPA. This bill would require a business that collects precise geolocation information to prominently display, when information is being collected, a notice to the consumer whose information is being collected that states certain information related to the collection of the information and its use by the business, including the goods or services requested by the consumer for which the business is collecting, processing, or disclosing the geolocation information and a description of how the business will process the geolocation information to carry out those purposes. This bill would prohibit a business that collects precise geolocation information from, among other things, retaining the information longer than necessary to provide the goods or services requested by the consumer or longer than one year after the consumer's last intentional interaction with the business, whichever is earlier. This bill would declare that its provisions further the purposes and intent of the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires the PUC, in consultation with the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission and the Independent System Operator, to take specified actions to facilitate the commercialization of microgrids for distribution customers of large electrical corporations, including developing microgrid service standards necessary to meet state and local permitting requirements and developing methods to reduce barriers for microgrid deployment without shifting costs between ratepayers. This bill would require a large electrical corporation, upon request, to collaborate with local governments, tribal governments, or community choice aggregators within its service area to support resiliency planning, as provided. The bill would require large electrical corporations to provide local governments, tribal governments, and community choice aggregators with access to data, including electrical distribution equipment data, transmission and distribution circuit data, grid hardening plans, and other information as directed by the commission, to support resiliency planning by local governments and tribal governments to ensure local governments, tribal governments, and community choice aggregators are able to plan potential microgrid projects to support critical facilities. The bill would authorize the commission to require large electrical corporations to share this information in aggregated and anonymized form to protect customer privacy and electrical grid security. Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the PUC is a crime. Because the violation of a PUC action implementing the bill's requirements would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law requires the State Department of Education, on or before January 1, 2024, to develop a plan to expand mental health instruction in California public schools. This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2028, to develop a plan to expand digital wellness instruction in California public schools, as provided.
This measure would urge President Donald J. Trump and Congress to protect and maintain the historic investments made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
Existing law requires, beginning on January 1, 2028, a vehicle with connected vehicle service to clearly indicate to a person who is inside the vehicle when a person who is outside the vehicle has accessed, among other things, connected vehicle location access. For these purposes, existing law defines "connected vehicle service" to mean any capability, including through a software application that is designed to be operated on a mobile device, to remotely obtain data from, or send commands to, a vehicle, and "connected vehicle location access" to mean a type of connected vehicle service that allows a person, who is outside of a vehicle, to view or track the location of the vehicle, as specified. If a vehicle includes connected vehicle location access, existing law requires a covered provider, as defined, to provide a mechanism that can be used by a driver who is inside a vehicle to immediately disable connected vehicle location access. Existing law delays the operation of this requirement depending on whether the vehicle was manufactured prior to, or on or after, January 1, 2028. Unless otherwise provided, a violation of the Vehicle Code constitutes an infraction. This bill would, instead, limit the provisions above to specified vehicles with connected vehicle access. The bill would apply the requirement for a vehicle with connected vehicle service to indicate to a person inside the vehicle if connected vehicle location access is enabled to all vehicles beginning with the 2031 model year. The bill would make this requirement operative beginning with the 2031 model year, for 2028, 2029, and 2030 model year vehicles, as soon as practicable after the vehicle is sold unless technologically infeasible, and on or before July 1, 2027, for 2027 model year or older vehicles unless technologically infeasible. By establishing a new duty on vehicle manufacturers, this bill would expand the general crime applicable to provisions under the Vehicle Code, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
The Digital Financial Assets Law, on or after July 1, 2026, prohibits a person from engaging in digital financial asset business activity or holding itself out as being able to engage in digital financial asset business activity, with or on behalf of a resident unless any of specified conditions is true. The law defines "digital financial asset" to mean a digital representation of value that is used as a medium of exchange, unit of account, or store of value, and that is not legal tender, whether or not denominated in legal tender and defines "digital financial asset business activity" to mean, among other similar things, exchanging, transferring, or storing a digital financial asset or engaging in digital financial asset administration, whether directly or through an agreement with a digital financial asset control services vendor. This bill, the Digital Financial Asset Banking Act, would generally regulate a bank or a credit union under the examination authority of the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation with respect to its provision of digital asset custody services, staking services, and digital asset transaction services, as those terms are defined, including by requiring certain disclosures to costumers and requiring certain financial safety measures. The bill would require a financial institution engaged in digital financial asset custody services to conduct an annual audit of its custodial activities and holdings that is either an independent audit or a review by the financial institution's board of directors for accuracy and signed be each board member under penalty of perjury. By expanding the scope of the crime of perjury, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would authorize the department to enforce its provisions with administrative and civil remedies, as specified. The Corporate Securities Law of 1968 generally regulates the offering and selling in this state of a security, as defined. This bill would define "security" to not include a staking reward, as defined. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Existing law requires, among other things related to ensuring the safety of companion chatbots, an operator to prevent a companion chatbot on its companion chatbot platform from engaging with users unless the operator maintains a protocol for preventing the production of suicidal ideation, suicide, or self-harm content to the user, as specified. This bill, the Preventing AI User Self Endangerment (PAUSE) Act, would require an operator to adopt and make publicly available a policy governing its protocol for identifying and responding to credible crisis expressions and, for each companion chatbot an operator makes available to users in this state, implement a system for monitoring and detecting credible crisis expressions in user conversations with companion chatbots. The bill would require, if the monitoring system detects a credible crisis expression, the operator to take certain actions, including commence a crisis interruption pause, as specified. The bill would define "credible crisis expression" to mean a statement by a user of a companion chatbot that reasonably indicates, as determined through contextual analysis rather than keyword detection alone, intent to harm the user or others. This bill would require an operator of a companion chatbot to document certain information related to credible crisis expressions and crisis interruption pauses and, beginning January 1, 2028, annually report that information to the Office of Suicide Prevention. The bill would provide for its enforcement, as specified.
Existing law requires a state agency or department that utilizes generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to directly communicate with a person regarding government services and benefits to ensure that those communications include a disclaimer that indicates to the person that the communication was generated by GenAI, as specified, and information describing how a person may contact a human employee of the state agency or department. This bill would instead require that disclaimer when a state agency or department uses GenAI to directly communicate with the public and would define "directly communicate" to mean to use GenAI, instead of a natural person, to communicate directly with a specific member of the public or to communicate a general public announcement, as specified.
Existing law establishes various privacy protections relating to the collection, use, sale, or distribution of personal information, images, or video recordings, including restrictions relating to the retention, access, use, sale, or sharing of images or video recordings collected through the operation of an in-vehicle camera. This bill would prohibit a security surveillance company, as defined, from distributing, selling, or otherwise authorizing a third party to access, use, or distribute content obtained from a consumer's security surveillance system without first obtaining the express consent of the consumer and the adult residents of a residential rental property or upon receipt of an order of a court or arbitrator.
The Unruh Civil Rights Act requires persons within the jurisdiction of the state to be free and equal and, regardless of the person's sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship, primary language, or immigration status, to be entitled to the full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all business establishments, as prescribed, and makes a violation of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) a violation of the act. Existing law imposes liability upon a person who denies, aids, or incites a denial of, or makes any discrimination or distinction contrary to, rights afforded by law for actual damages suffered, exemplary damages, a civil penalty, and attorney's fees, as specified, to any person who was denied the specified rights. Existing law also imposes liability upon a person, firm, or corporation that denies or interferes with admittance to, or enjoyment of, public facilities or otherwise interferes with the rights of an individual with a disability, as specified, for damages and attorney's fees to a person who was denied those rights. This bill would grant to an entity an affirmative defense to a claim seeking statutory damages under the provisions described above on the basis of a specific accessibility barrier on the entity's internet website, as defined, if the entity provided evidence to the plaintiff demonstrating within 30 days of receiving a written prelawsuit demand from the plaintiff that either (1) the entity published a digital accessibility report on the accessibility page of its internet website disclosing the specific access barrier and updated that report to reflect remediation of the access barrier or (2) that various things were true regarding the entity's efforts to identify and remediate access barriers on its internet website, including the entity had a reasonable and good faith basis to believe that the internet website was accessible and conformed with the internet website accessibility standard, as specified. This bill would also prohibit a resource service provider from, in exchange for money or any other form of remuneration, negligently, recklessly, or knowingly constructing, licensing, distributing, or maintaining for online use a resource or part of an internet website that causes an entity's internet website to be inaccessible or not conformant with the internet website accessibility standard if the resource or part of the internet website is within the control of the resource service provider to remediate or from making a false representation that a resource or part of an internet website is accessible or conforms to the internet website accessibility standard. The bill would authorize a small business entity, as defined, and certain public attorneys, including the Attorney General, to bring a civil action to enforce that provision, as specified.
