Technology

Existing law requires the Office of Emergency Services to establish and lead the California Cybersecurity Integration Center, which is composed of representatives from specified organizations, including the State Threat Assessment Center. Existing law requires the California Cybersecurity Integration Center to operate in close coordination with the California State Threat Assessment System and the United States Department of Homeland Security for specified information-sharing purposes. This bill would state that it is the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would require the State Threat Assessment Center to develop an intelligence sharing plan that respects individual's privacy and civil rights.

Existing law requires the Legislative Counsel, with the advice of the Assembly Committee on Rules and the Senate Committee on Rules, to make certain legislative information available to the public in electronic form, including the text, bill history, and bill status of each bill introduced and amended in each current legislative session and all bill analyses prepared by legislative committees in connection with each bill in each current legislative session. This bill would add all position letters submitted through the Legislature's internet portal in connection with each bill in each current legislative session to the information the Legislative Counsel is required to make publicly available in electronic form.

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 grants a consumer various rights with respect to personal information that is collected or sold by a business, as defined, including the right to direct a business that sells or shares personal information about the consumer to third parties not to sell or share the consumer's personal information, as specified. The California Financial Information Privacy Act prohibits a financial institution from selling, sharing, transferring, or otherwise disclosing nonpublic personal information to or with any nonaffiliated third parties without the explicit prior consent of the consumer to whom the nonpublic personal information relates, as prescribed. This bill would prohibit a person from selling to a third party personal information of a mortgage applicant that was collected by the person during the mortgage application process.

This measure would urge the President and the Congress of the United States to initiate a temporary moratorium on the enforcement of copyright claims, content identification matches, or monetization actions originating from any claimants or multichannel networks based in a nation deemed to be a Priority Foreign Country by the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

Existing law establishes the Instructional Quality Commission and requires the commission to, among other things, recommend curriculum frameworks and the adoption of instructional materials to the State Board of Education. Existing law requires the commission to consider incorporating the Model Library Standards into the next revision of the English language arts/English language development (ELA/ELD) curriculum framework after January 1, 2024, and to also consider incorporating media literacy content at each grade level. Existing law requires the commission to consider including the Model Library Standards, including media literacy content, in its criteria for evaluating instructional materials when the state board next adopts ELA/ELD instructional materials after January 1, 2025. Existing law requires the commission to consider incorporating media literacy content into the mathematics, science, and history-social science curriculum frameworks when those frameworks are next revised after January 1, 2024. Existing law requires the commission to consider including media literacy content in its criteria for evaluating instructional materials when the state board next adopts mathematics, science, and history-social science instructional materials after January 1, 2025. Existing law defines media literacy, for the above-described purposes, as the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and use media and information and encompasses the foundational skills that lead to digital citizenship. This bill would specify that those skills include, but are not limited to, an understanding of, among other things, time management and healthy behaviors on social media, the permanency of sharing material online, and how to maintain personal security and identify cyberbullying, predatory behavior, and human trafficking on the internet.

Existing law, the Genetic Information Privacy Act, requires a direct-to-consumer genetic testing company, as defined, to provide a consumer with certain information regarding the company's policies and procedures for the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure, as applicable, of genetic data, and to obtain a consumer's express consent for collection, use, or disclosure of the consumer's genetic data, as specified. Existing law assesses a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000 for a negligent violation of these provisions, and a civil penalty between $1,000 and $10,000, inclusive, for a willful violation of these provisions. This bill would require all local law enforcement agencies in the state to report to the Attorney General starting July 1, 2027, and annually thereafter, the number of reports filed in the past year on the theft of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and the current status of those cases. The bill would require the Attorney General to, on or before January 1, 2028, report to the Legislature, and post on its internet website, the number of police reports filed on the theft of DNA and the current status of those cases. By increasing duties on local law enforcement, 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) grants to a consumer various rights with respect to personal information, as defined, that is collected by a business, as defined, including the right to request that a business delete personal information about the consumer that the business has collected from the consumer. The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, an initiative measure approved by the voters as Proposition 24 at the November 3, 2020, statewide general election, amended, added to, and reenacted the CCPA. The CCPA establishes the California Privacy Protection Agency with full administrative power, authority, and jurisdiction to implement and enforce the CCPA. The CCPA law makes a business, service provider, contractor, or other person that violates the CCPA liable for an administrative fine, as provided. The CCPA creates the Consumer Privacy Fund in the State Treasury and makes moneys in the fund available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law requires 95% of any administrative fine assessed, and of the proceeds of any settlement, to be deposited into the Consumer Privacy Subfund, which is created within the Consumer Privacy Fund. The CCPA law requires the funds to be used exclusively by the agency in carrying out its duties under the CCPA. The CCPA requires the other 5% of any administrative fine, and of the proceeds of any settlement, to be deposited into the Consumer Privacy Grant Subfund, also within the Consumer Privacy Fund, to be used exclusively by the agency to administer and distribute grants to promote and protect consumer privacy, as provided. This bill would authorize a person to submit to the agency, a whistleblower complaint, as defined, and would make the whistleblower eligible for an award if the agency designates a complaint for administrative enforcement and certain requirements are met. The bill would require an eligible whistleblower to receive at least 15% but not more than 33% of the fines collected through an administrative enforcement action or settlement, calculated after the allocation to Consumer Privacy Grant Subfund described above. The bill would require the agency to consider certain factors in determining the amount of the award. The bill would additionally authorize the agency to assess an administrative penalty against a person who violates the CCPA in an amount to cover the reasonable attorney's fees of the whistleblower. This bill would create the Consumer Privacy Whistleblower Subfund within the Consumer Privacy Fund and would require the funds awarded by the agency to a whistleblower or for attorney's fees to be deposited into the Consumer Privacy Whistleblower Subfund. The bill would make those funds available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for payment to the whistleblower or the whistleblower's attorney, as appropriate. This bill would require the whistleblower, in order to be eligible for a whistleblower award, to meet certain requirements, including that the whistleblower be represented by an attorney and declare under penalty of perjury that the information submitted with the whistleblower complaint is true and correct to the best of the whistleblower's knowledge and belief. The bill would authorize a person to submit a whistleblower complaint anonymously, subject to certain conditions, including that the whistleblower's attorney certify, under penalty of perjury, that the attorney has taken certain actions, including verifying the whistleblower's identity. The bill would make a whistleblower's identify confidential, except as provided, and would exempt disclosure of the whistleblower's identify from the California Public Records Act. By requiring the declarations under penalty of perjury described above, the bill would create new crimes and, thus, impose a state-mandated local program. Under the bill, an employee, contractor, or agent would be entitled to bring a civil action to seek specified relief and damages if the employee, contractor, or agent is subject to specified forms of discrimination in the terms and conditions of their employment because of lawful acts done by the employee, contractor, agent, or associated others in furtherance of a whistleblower complaint or administrative enforcement action under the bill or other efforts to stop one or more violations of the CCPA. The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2020 authorizes the Legislature to amend the act to further the purposes and intent of the act by a majority vote of both houses of the Legislature, as specified. This bill would declare that its provisions further the purposes and intent of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2020. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. 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 that each death be registered with the local registrar of births and deaths in the district in which the death was officially pronounced or the body was found. Existing law designates persons responsible for completing a certificate of death and the required contents of the certificate. Existing law requires the State Department of Public Health to implement an internet-based electronic death registration system for the creation, storage, and transfer of death registration information. Existing law authorizes the State Registrar to incorporate computer or telephone facsimile technology, or both, in the statewide program of death registration. This bill would require the State Registrar to use updated technology, including computer and mobile telephone applications, to upgrade the system. The bill would also require that specified individuals, including a physician, medical examiner, and local registrar, have the ability to access the electronic death registration system in addition to the individuals currently responsible for completing a certificate of death. The bill would also authorize specified individuals to attest to a death within the system using electronic, voice, or facsimile methods. The bill would require the department to update the system to allow this.

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 request that a business that collects personal information about the consumer disclose to the consumer certain information about that personal information, including the categories of personal information it has collected about that consumer and the specific pieces of personal information it has collected about that consumer. This bill, the Digital Choice Act, would require a social media company or a person that makes an artificial intelligence model available to a third party for use, modification, copying, or combination with other software, defined as a deployer, to allow a consumer to request a copy of the consumer's personal information, contextual data, and social graph and would require the social media company or deployer to respond to that request within five business days in a format that is, among other things, portable to the extent technically feasible. The bill would define "contextual data" to mean information provided by a user to an artificial intelligence model and any context or derivative data associated with the user's interactions with the artificial intelligence model, as specified, and any model-generated or inferred data linked to or generated from those interactions. The bill would define "social graph" to mean data that represents a person's connections and interactions within a social media platform, as specified. This bill would require, among other things, a social media company to implement a transparent, third-party-accessible interoperability interface that allows a user to choose to share a covered user's social graph or user-selected parts of the social graph to a social media platform designated by the user and enable a third party to, with the user's permission, access a social graph created by the user and be notified when a new or updated social graph is available, as prescribed. The bill would require a deployer to implement a third-party-accessible interoperability interface to allow a user to share the user's contextual data directly with other artificial intelligence models as the user designates and enable those artificial intelligence models to be notified when new or updated data is available, as prescribed. This bill would authorize the Attorney General to adopt specified regulations, as provided, and require the Attorney General to enforce the bill's provisions by bringing an administrative action, as specified.

Under existing law, a county elections official is required to prepare a certified statement of the results of an election and submit it to the county board of supervisors within 30 days of the election. This bill would make it a felony, punishable by imprisonment for 16 months or 2 or 3 years, to seize or cause or assist in the seizure of ballots, election records, or certified voting technology before election results are certified by the elections official. The bill would also make it a felony punishable by imprisonment for 2, 3, or 4 years for any person with authority to direct another person subject to their supervision or authority to seize ballots, election records, or certified voting technology before election results are certified. By creating new crimes, 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. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.