Assembly Standing Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection

Am I on now? Yes. Okay. Well, you all missed me welcoming you to 2026 in the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection hearing. Maybe it'll be a quiet year in this community Committee. I doubt it, but we shall see. But today we have two bills on the agenda. Two two year bills.

I want to thank both the authors for working closely with Committee and working hard on those bills in the interim such that we are where we are today. Both have a high recommendation from the chair. To effectively manage our time, we'll be limiting testimony to two witnesses, support to an opposition.

Each witness is allowed three minutes to present. And then obviously anybody in the room can state their position, name and organization. Always want to remind that we want to hear from everybody.

So if you can't be here in person or if you don't get a chance to say everything you want to say today, please visit our website where you can submit written comments which we all really take great privilege in reading. So I don't think we have a quorum yet. Am I right, Madam Secretary? No.

So we will start as a Subcommitee. I want to thank Assemblymember Bennett, who isn't yet here today, but he will be filling in for Assembly Wilson, who is out today. So let's start with Assemblymember Addis. When you are ready, we will start as a Subcommitee. And this is AB 1159.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee Members. It is a pleasure to be with you today. I'm here to present AB 1159, the California Learner Personal Information Protection Act, otherwise known as CAL PIPA, which makes critical improvements to California's student data privacy laws to reflect the modern reality of our education system and better protect our students.

I want to start by thanking you, Madam Chair, as well as your staff who have been tremendous. And we will take the committee's amendments, and I understand those will be in Assembly Judiciary.

Just to give you a sense of the problem, the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act, also known as CAL PIPA, was signed into law in 2014 to combat the risks associated with rising use of technology in the classroom.

And I would say that over the last 20 years that I was a teacher and also being a parent, I've seen the transformation firsthand of Ed Tech in our schools. And we know that Ed Tech is prevalent in our classrooms from preschool through university.

So it's no surprise that today's students have never before seen threats to their privacy in the classroom. And this includes Ed Tech platforms that are collecting audio, visual information, photographs, videos, audio recordings, financial information, home address, family contact, attendance patterns, health related searches and more.

And as well as intellectual information, answers on quizzes and homework questions that can share more about a student than they actually realized. And we have numerous examples of invasive questions that have been asked. So with all of this in mind, it's clear that we have some critical weaknesses in student data protections.

First, there's uncertainty about who should comply with CO PIPA and what information those organizations collect. Second, while the Early Learning Personal Information Protection Act or ELPIPA extended protections to preschool children, there's 2.9 million California higher ed students that still lack critical safeguards.

Thirdly, protections in current law are in desperate need of modernization given that we have so much sensitive information out there. Some of it's being used to train models, AI models, some of it is being subpoenaed and used in really horrible ways.

So we have a solution to all this, AB 1159 that will ensure that information collected from any California student for educational purposes is used only for educational purposes and is not misused by Big Tech. So I've got two witnesses and I'm happy to share more details as we go through, but I have two witnesses with me today.

Becca Kramer representing Privacy Rights Clearing House, the sponsor of the Bill. And then Mitch Steiger, who you all know, legislative rep for cft.

Thank you. Before we move to your witnesses, which we will, we have a quorum. We're going to take advantage of that. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Looks like I'm in charge for a moment. All right, let's hear our first witness. Thank you.

Thank you. Becca Cramer on behalf of Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, proud sponsors of AB 1159. California has long been a leader in protecting student privacy, passing the first law in the nation directly regulating the EdTech that was starting to proliferate in K through 12 classrooms to ensure educational privacy law kept pace with technology.

Over a decade later, Ed Tech is deeply embedded in students lives. But there is still no California or federal law focused on the Ed tech companies who collect personal and private information from college students, including high school students with dual enrollment in college courses. These college students are required to use technology in order to get their degrees.

They must read the digital coursebook their instructor selects and answer its digital prompts and questions such as these questions. One such ed tech company asks college students did the student have more than one sexual partner? Did the student use a latex condom or oil based lubricant?

Students and faculty are largely unaware of how their personal information on these digital services is collected, used, shared and sold. Popular textbook providers, for example, reserve the right to use students educational information for marketing and advertising, combining it with information purchased from data brokers and sharing student sensitive personal information with tech giants and social media platforms.

No student should have to sacrifice their privacy in order to get an education.

AB 1159 ensures all California students have the same privacy protections when it comes to Ed Tech as well as ensures that Ed Tech does not collect students' immigration status, sexual orientation or gender identity, or reproductive or sexual health information. Information that is invasive and not necessary for Ed Tech companies to know. For these reasons, we are proud to sponsor AB 1159.

Thank you. Moving to the next witness.

Thank you Madam Chair Members. Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals, a strong support of the Bill for all the reasons stated so well by the author and previous witness.

We just wanted to add a little bit more perspective on this Bill from where our members are and their relationship to all of this technology. So they are often required to use this technology and sometimes it's optional and especially where it's required.

The situation that we've got right now creates a lot of problems for our members where they face a great deal of fear and anxiety about the data security, the data security concerns created by the use of this technology, where they know it's weak, they know current law is inadequate, but they don't really know what, if anything, they can do about it.

And so they go through their lives administering all of this technology to their students, really concerned about what the effects may be.

They don't know if as a result of this technology, the students are going to be exposed to some predatory credit card scheme, or have their gender identity exposed, or have their entire identity stolen in ways that could affect their financial future for the rest of their lives.

And so with the protections outlined in this Bill, it will greatly alleviate a lot of that fear and anxiety that our members feel about the negative effects of this technology.

And then maybe even more importantly, where the technology is optional, with these protections in place, they'll be a lot more likely to use the technology when it makes sense and when they know that it's something that's effective and helpful for students, they won't have nearly as much of that fear about those harms actually taking place.

And so they can use this technology. The students can benefit from its effectiveness, and everyone can focus much more on the task at hand of education, and they can spend a lot less time worried about what the potential harms may be. So we strongly urge your support.

Thank you. Anybody else here in support of this measure, please come up. Name, organization and position.

On behalf of Equality California in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Ivan Fernandez, on behalf of the California Labor Federation, in support.

Thank you.

Kat Brocklin with the California School Employees Association in support.

Good afternoon, Lang Lai from on behalf of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California, and the following organization, Children's Advocacy Institute, Students Deserve Oakland Privacy, Consumer Action, Indivisible California Straight Strong, the California LGBTQ Health and Human Services Network, Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network, Courage California Secure Justice, Tech Oversight, California Asian Solidarity Collective, and Californians Together, all in support, thank you.

Hello. Mikey Houthi, on behalf of Common Sense Media in support.

Thank you.

Eric Paredes with the California Faculty Association in support, thank you.

Thank you. And I assume we have chief witnesses or witness in opposition. Anyone here coming testify in opposition? Come on up. Same rules apply.

And before we move to opposition, just I know I saw the opposition, I want to clarify the jurisdiction of this Committee is the privacy piece. The referral today will be to Judiciary Committee and the private right of action and enforcement piece is left to the jurisdiction of that Committee.

That's not I mean, I'm not going to censor you, but I just wanted to be clear that I defer to the Judiciary Committee on that piece of and it's not discussed in the analysis for that reason.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee. My name is Emily Scott and I am Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy for the College Board.

As a nonprofit education organization that partners with schools and higher education institutions to serve millions of California students each year, College Board respectfully opposes AB 1159 we'd like to start by thanking the author of the bill for meeting with us this morning.

Morning we certainly support many of the goals that are stated and we look forward to continuing to work with the author's office on this bill.

There are amendments, however, in the bill, some of which we think could be misinterpreted to potentially jeopardize students ability to engage in critical steps on their college and career journey, such as sending AP scores to colleges, getting postcards in the mail from colleges, encouraging them to apply, and accessing scholarships.

Other amendments in the bill introduce new far reaching regulation of AI use in the classroom from kindergarten through college that risks disrupting instruction and limiting access to responsible educational innovation. AI is already used extensively in the classroom.

Many school districts, for example, use AI powered tutoring as a way to provide students with one to one interactions in the classroom and at home. And these AI powered tools are built and improved using student specific experiences, learning from what worked or what did not work for a particular student or teacher.

So PIPA already expressly allows for the use of student data for purposes of product development for precisely this reason so that educational tools can be developed and improved to better support student learning and quality. AI tools for education are and we believe will continue to be essential to support student learning.

While education companies don't need to know a user's personal information to develop a good product, they do need to there does need to be some sort of identification with the user in order to track them across multiple interactions and continue to improve the tool and identify whether it's actually working to support the student.

Overall, this bill presents very broad regulation of the use of AI in education k through college, which raises complex high stakes questions and we believe deserves a standalone bill robust analysis and engagement with a broad range of experts and stakeholders.

We believe that inserting this broad, sweeping regulation into this bill does not provide a thorough treatment that this issue needs.

This bill would also make adult college students subject to SOPIPA, which is a result that was not intended by this law and could restrict those adult students from being able to consent to the disclosure of their own data for internships, jobs or other opportunities as they prepare to launch their careers.

The fact that students could use their data on their own for these purposes doesn't account for the fact that they often need their school's career services, office or internship programs and rely on those resources which include third party service providers who can then connect those students to post college opportunities.

Forcing students to navigate that transition on their own without access to these resources is a disservice at a time when they already face challenges in launching their careers.

Finally, the express addition of the broad private right of action subjects College Board and other applicants operators to class action and litigation exposure, which is an extraordinary expense that can limit our ability to dedicate nonprofit resources to our educational mission and to students. For the foregoing reasons, College Board respectfully opposes AB 1159.

Thank you.

Thank you. Your witness.

All right, Good afternoon Chair and Members, Jose Torres with TechNet. I'm here in respectful opposition of AB 1159. TechNet and our member companies are strongly committed to protecting student data and privacy. However, this bill remains overly broad and would significantly chill responsible AI development, particularly in education technology at a time when California should be leading.

As we see it, the bill restricts the use of student data for AI development when that data is used responsibly, securely and for educational purposes. Data is the foundation of modern AI systems and without the ability to use relevant safeguarded data, developers cannot improve accuracy, enhance accessibility, or build effective tools.

This impact is very much real in educational technology we see currently being used throughout the state. AI powered tools are supporting tutoring, personalized learning, language translation, accessibility for students with disabilities, and school efficiency.

The broadness of this bill risks chilling that innovation by creating legal uncertainty around whether AI systems can be trained, improved or even maintained using education related data. Many AI systems require contextual signals such as grade bands, course levels and learning progression to evaluate real world progression. In practice, these systems require more than a static database.

Even with the allowance for de identified data, the bill still creates uncertainty around whether these necessary development and improvement activities are permitted. And that uncertainty matters. When developers cannot clearly determine what is allowed, they pull back. When that uncertainty is paired with the private right of Action. It discourages investment, research and deployment in California.

For these reasons, we oppose 1159 for its potential to undermine education, innovation and disadvantage and California's broader innovation economy. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. And you heard technet. Yes, thank you to know who's talking. Awesome. Anybody else here in opposition?

Wait, I don't think it's on. Yeah, there we go. Good afternoon. Ronak Dalami with Cal Chamber. Align our comments with those of our colleagues in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. I might be getting a second. Well, wait a second.

Jonathan Lackland, Act Education Corp. And we're also respectfully in opposition.

Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Bring it back to the dais. Yes, Mr. Patterson.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. It's good to be back here in this Committee again. And I was listed number 43 in CalMatters, most talkative. So I'm going to talk as much as possible. Just kidding. You know, I'm looking forward to supporting this measure.

Today I had a similar measure with much less support, but it was signed by the Governor a few years ago that gives students, once they leave a district or their parents to delete data that these third party vendors with schools are using.

And, and the whole idea around consent, even for college students who are adults, is kind of a misnomer because when you log into an app, you get about three pages of legal documentation that you just don't understand. You don't. And you have, if you want to use it, you got to consent to it.

And if that's a part of your education system, you really don't even have an option to do so. So I don't really think consent exists in this matter, in which case you have to use it for educational purposes.

And if my child's data, because I actually got in my own district, my kid, first grader was asked to be part of some third party social emotional learning program. And I asked, I said, how's this data going to be used?

Are people, is it going to be aggregate data or they going to specify my kid is acting this way, Poor teacher, you know, it wasn't on her, but she had no idea, you know, and that's fine. So I took my kid out of that.

But if we have to go back to the days where zero my God, kids have to learn reading books, you know, and not using apps because my kid's data on how he's acting or whatever can't be used by some generative AI program, then I guess we got to Go back to the olden days because I think we need to prohibit data, children's data from being used in every case that we possibly can.

And so with that I'm looking forward to supporting this measure.

Madam Vice Chair. Thank you. Madam Chair. I share my colleagues opinion and when you think of children and this information that will follow them for the next hundred years, presumably potentially it concerns, I mean none of us, I mean we've spent the last three years talking about AI and no one can predict the future on this whatsoever.

So whatever guardrails we can establish I think is is beneficial. So as I've spoken with the author, I my immediate response when she texted me over the weekend was of course. And then I read about the private right of action. That's why I mentioned that a moment ago.

That gives me concern because as we in other matters that came before the Judiciary Committee related to class action lawsuits. With. Public agencies or educational institutions, it's creating havoc in our state. So I just have a high guard against private right of action.

Even though it's $500 but in a class action it could go sky's the limit anyway. I will hold off I guess because I think your intentions are absolutely 100% honorable. But still I have a voice in my brain that tells me we don't know where any of this is going.

So where we could start and put some guardrails, I think that's smart. I'm sure this will come back a year from now and try to address it another way. But I just don't want to have this start with immediately. Lawyers, unscrupulous lawyers. Not always.

I'm married to a lawyer and there are lawyers there, but looking for a great opportunity to create a class action lawsuit against educational institutions. So it really has nothing to do with your bill per se, but I just don't want to see that happening to threaten our public education or public or private educational institutions. So thank you.

And I'll. What do I say? Lay off. Whatever I say. I won't vote. No vote today, but I will follow it and I'm in spiritual support. We'll see what judiciary does.

And I will, we will, we will see this again in judiciary and I will note that again we didn't discuss the priorit of action here because it's not the jurisdiction of the Committee.

But for those that are interested in following along, the current private action does have a right to cure which I think was the author's attempt to address some of the litigation protection. So just what it but again not 32nd.

Just an answer.

Well, no, it's up to Madam Vice here. Do you want her to address your. Or do you want to.

Okay, I'm happy to address more of it. I just wanted to do one correction, that the private right of action is not against the school entities. It's just the schools are not impacted in any way by this. This is about what the companies can. Do, and the private right of action is against the company.

So this won't be affecting the school districts except to give them comfort that. Their products are protect. Are protective of their students privacy.

Yeah, that was helpful. Senator Hellerin, thank you.

And I want to thank the author. For bringing this bill forward. I actually have a question for the. Opposition, the College Board. It's my understanding that the College Board. Makes revenue off of the sale or. Licensing of student data. And if that's true, what percentage of your revenue comes from that sale?

So in the context of in school testing, we do not anymore.

So several years ago, all in school testing moved from the model where data can be licensed to colleges for the purpose of recruitment to a model where now, if a student takes a school, takes a test in school, which is what's covered by this law and this bill, their data would not be shared or licensed.

So the licensing program now is just in the direct to consumer context. But just to answer your question, anyway, if a student directly registers for the sat, for example, they can have an opportunity to affirmatively opt in. It is a separate consent to do that.

And they affirmatively opt in to have their information shared with colleges, universities, scholarship providers, and then those nonprofit organizations can contact the student to recruit them for their programs, to recognize them with the scholarship, you know, to reach out to them, to encourage them to apply.

And there is a licensing fee that the higher ed institutions pay to access that data. But again, that is not relevant in the context of this law because in school students, students who are using the products in school don't have access to that through their, through their use of the. The in school product, if that makes sense.

So your budget doesn't reflect any revenue from the sale and licensing of student data?

It does. I don't have those numbers before. Okay, but it's. But it. But with respect to the products that are sold to districts, that is not. There is no licensing, direct licensing of student data. For that. For that.

Okay. We might want to be looking at. Yeah, we can.

Okay. Yeah, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me right now. Okay. There is revenue from licensing of data. It's just that the in school use case, there's, there's no licensing of that data.

Okay. All right. We may follow up with you on that one. Thank you.

And I will say there are obviously under California's privacy laws, children have rights outside of the law that's being discussed here today that would deal with the data that's collected through test taking. For example, you have to apply with the California privacy.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I want to start with saying I agree with the premise of this bill and the egregious instances that you gave. Absolutely. I think there's a way to narrowly tailor this. I come from a part of the state that we, I don't have a four year university in my district.

We don't have the same access to resources as a lot of the state. So I actually talked when I saw this bill, I reached out to some parents that had college age kids in my district to see how they'd feel about it.

Some of them talked about scholarships that they didn't even know about, that they found out about through solicitation. Some of them had great scores at school. Schools are reaching out to them that they might have not known otherwise, that they would have had these opportunities.

So I think we're kind of throwing out the baby with the bathwater here a little bit that I think there's. This is a great place to start because I think it is a little broad, but I'm hoping we can kind of narrow this down a little bit. I will see this again in judiciary.

So I'm not going to be able to support today, but I do hope that along the way I can support it. Sounds like there's a way to make sure we're not isolating the good actors, but we can keep the bad actors out when with the egregious situations that you talked about that my colleague talked about.

So with that, please, if I can be included in the conversations, I would love to be. We want to protect our kids. We want to protect their data, but we also want to make sure that some kids that don't maybe know about opportunities can still get these opportunities because they are alerted to them. So thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you. Essayli and I will say my amazing staff who always keep me on track, reminded me that you are a nonprofit so you don't have to complain. Comply with California's privacy laws, which means that all test taking outside of school would remain unprotected as it relates to the sale of that data.

I didn't realize they were nonprofit. I spent spending so much on my almost college aged child that I just zoomed as for profit. But I know that the author's intent is clear here and I'm sure she'll look at all of this as we move forward. Thank you, Simon. Anybody else?

Okay, well I want to thank the author for her work here. I think you heard sort of in a bipartisan way. One of the things that I love about this Committee as a mom specifically, which is that this Committee really takes to heart protecting California's children.

And in this day and age that really means looking into the online spaces and how our kids are being exposed in these spaces. And I agree with my colleague Sally Patterson. When we send our kids to school, we want them to have access to the best learning tools. We also don't have choices around those tools.

The schools do. And the schools many. I represent mostly small school districts. I know we have some LA Members here, they're the behemoth. But in my school districts they don't have access to the kind of lawyers and tech experts to understand privacy and how to protect it.

And that's part of what is, I think something that we as a state need to acknowledge and support them in because again, we want these tools to be protective of our kids privacy and we also want them to help our kids grow and learn and be ready for the 21st century jobs they're going to face.

And I think what you're trying to do here is find that balance, which I think is critically important. California has always had the strongest privacy laws in the nation. And I think we need to continue to I'll note that the language around AI the author the amendments today made clear is generative AI.

And the reason that we did that, just so everybody understands was I think that to the extent that we have tools that are in house that are using machine learning but are not generative AI, that frankly we know there's no way to know how not to get out what goes in.

So if my kids identify data goes into a generative AI or a large language model, it could come out. And that feels significantly different to me than closed model tools that are being used in a closed setting at an academic institution making sure that that data is not exposed in the same way.

And so she did narrow it in that way. And I think it's an important note to some of the comments that were made about artificial intelligence. Although I will say that that conversation I'm sure will continue as this moves through the Legislature because training data is at a premium these days.

And so that will be a lot of what I'm sure we hear about. But as far as I'm concerned, and I think was what I heard my colleague saying, we can train models without giving away our kids data because they're in a classroom.

I think that the models can do that and we can expect that of our tech companies. So with that, would you like to close?

I just want to thank the Committee. For the robust conversation. There's clearly a lot of passion and. Goodwill for kids at this Committee, but also a lot of expertise. And I really want to say thank. You Madam Chair, for the expertise that. You'Ve brought to this Committee and the.

Way that you've led it in your time as chairship and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

I think we had a motion and a second Clerk will call the roll.

Item number one AB 1159 by Assemblymember Addis. The motion is do passed to the Judiciary Committee. Bauer-Kahan.

[Roll call]

That bill has 10 votes. We will leave it on call for the absent Members. Thank you Member. Mr. Lowenthal, you are up when you are ready.

Well, thank you Madam Chair and Members. It is nice to be here again. I missed you guys. I really did. This is such a special Committee. It really is.

I don't have any other experiences like it where people come to Committee, truly open minded and listen to each other on a level I don't think happens elsewhere in the Capitol. So it's nice to be here. Mr. Patterson, you're much higher than 43 in my heart.

I'm also 43 years old, so hopefully not very very nice.

And before I begin, Madam Chair, I do want to thank the Committee staff for their incredible work, especially over the holidays and making sure that this Bill would be ready to go. They are exemplary. I am pleased to present AB883.

This is a Bill that I'm carrying in partnership with our Chair, Assemblymember Barry Cahan, which seeks to protect the personal information of California's elected and appointed officials. Members. It should not come as a surprise to any of us that the rates of political violence is on the rise.

According to a 2024 report from the University of San Diego, 66% of all elected officials report being on the receiving end of threats and harassment. Even more, 46% of women and 39% of men have considered leaving public service as a direct result of the threats and harassment that they've experienced. I've experienced that.

I know many of you in this room have experienced it and we also have colleagues that have left the profession as a result, which is awful. We saw during the pandemic numerous public health officials and other electeds experience threats of violence and other types of intimidation.

Further, in 2020, the son of a judge in New Jersey was murdered in his home by a man who had grievances against that judge. These incidents indicate a need to ensure our laws are increasingly protective of the personal information of elected and appointed officials, while also protecting our important principles of an open government.

Once this information about an individual is shared or collected, it can be sold and is often sold and shared amongst hundreds of data brokers, leaving public facing officials extremely vulnerable to danger. I'm sure that all of us here today have been forced to confront that ugly truth.

AB8A3 requires the Secretary of State and the Judicial Council to provide a list of all state and local officials to the CPPA who then upload the list to the data broker deletion system and requires that the data brokers delete the personal information for that individual within five days.

As evolving technology has greatly expanded the ability for information to proliferate across the Internet with increasing accuracy, it is absolutely critical that we give our elected and appointed officials who have answered the calling to serve their communities the tools they need to keep themselves and their families safe.

Very pleased today to be joined by Mr. Doug Subers on behalf of Californians for Consumer Privacy who is here to testify in support.

Thank you Madam Chair and Members. Doug Subers on behalf of California for Consumer Privacy. Pleased to be a sponsor and strong supporter of AB8 83. I would like to thank the Chair and the Committee staff for all their work on this incredibly important issue. As Assemblymember Lowenthal highlighted, threats towards elected and appointed officials are increasing.

In addition to the events that were flagged by the author, we also saw the tragedies that occurred in Minnesota last year and are highlighted in the analysis.

It's our belief that elected officials swear an oath to serve the public and they should be able to do so free of harassment or threats of violence or actual violence to them and their families.

And As a result, AB 883 will help automate and expedite the process for elected and appointed officials to have their information deleted from the state's accessible deletion mechanism. And this is.

This will not solve the challenges that elected officials face as far as harassment and violence, but will take an important step to prevent their further proliferation of their personal information throughout the data ecosystem. So for those reasons, we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else here in support of this measure besides us for whom it supports? Anyone here in opposition to this measure? Come on up.

Could have just stayed here, but. Good afternoon, chair Members Jose Torres with TechNet. Again, I want to begin by acknowledging the very real concerns that motivated this Bill. However, TechNet is in an opposed unless amended position.

As drafted, the Bill lacks explicit language that would preserve non public, highly regulated data sharing necessary for lawful transactions and security purposes, for example, cases involving financial transactions, fraud prevention and identity verification. This data sharing is not publicly accessible, not sold or marketed, and not disclosed in the manner the Bill seeks to prevent.

Without clear statutory exemptions, the Bill creates a legal ambiguity around this type of data sharing that would disrupt compliance with existing financial and security obligations. We are also concerned about the five day compliance timeline as it may be too unrealistic.

Existing law appropriately accounts for foreseeable technical and operational constraints by allowing data brokers up to 45 days to process consumer deletion requests. Some alignment here would be appreciated. Finally, not for this Committee, but we do also oppose a private right of action which introduces a litigation risk.

With our amendments, we believe the Bill can achieve its safety goals without unintended consequences. We appreciate the author's office for engaging with us on this Bill and do look forward to continuing to work on this together.

Thank you. Anyone else here in opposition to this measure? zero, someone's coming. I'll pause. Don't worry. You don't need to run. I'll wait.

Your Honor, D. On behalf of Cal Chamber, also in an opposite less amendment position. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Jasmine Rye, on behalf of Tech CA also oppose unless amended position. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Seeing no additional opposition, I just want to. I'm going to turn it over to somebody. I want to make one note, which is the Bill doesn't create a new right. It merely expedites the ability for elected officials to be deleted under the data broker law.

I know y' all did not like everything in the data broker law, but from what I'm hearing from your opposition, you're asking us to reopen the data broker law. I will say that I'm not open to that. So I can just make that clear to Everyone here today, that is settled, signed law.

And this does not, I guess it creates an additional right for us to be deleted in a speedier fashion. But we get no more deletion than the average Californian with that.

Yeah, not really a question, but as soon as I think that the Senator Becker Bill, I was so excited to see that because when we heard stories a few years ago about people being followed throughout New York because their location data was being sent, was. Was obtained by data brokers, and then that information becomes public.

And to me, your location is one of the highly, highly private data points that you do not want shared. You do not want people to be able to follow you. So I loved that he introduced that Bill. It's effective. It was effective January 1st.

I tried to get in there and the website was very full and I couldn't get to the next step. But it would be great if all the elected officials had a chance to be able to remove their names.

Because often people don't realize, you know, just with ccpa, they just don't realize the rights that are available to them. And we want to make sure that the people that are most vulnerable and there's more than just us. I mean, I don't know if you have.

There's a lot of others that might be considered for the list, but that the people that are most vulnerable to the misuse of their personal data is often the politicians or judges.

Just as you mentioned, one of the, you know, and I don't know if you have looked through this complication was if you do it individually, you can say, hey, there's certain data brokers that I don't mind if they have my data. How is that handled if. If it is done by the Privacy Agency.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Questions, but I guess I had that one. But great Bill and I will move it.

The, the. The Bill permits when the list from either the Secretary of State or the Judicial Counsel is provided to the Privacy agency. There is. The statutory framework provides an opportunity for the elected official to withdraw their name from the list.

So from an operational perspective, right now, you would probably need to withdraw your name from the list and then just execute your right under the drop program yourself to exclude certain data brokers. But I assume that is something that can be discussed as the Bill goes along.

And then I guess maybe for the author, because I'm sure you're following this or maybe Mr. Savara said, how many people have utilized this right have they been able to get through the website?

I don't know the exact number Okay, I heard a lot of people, but I don't know what that is.

And I will say that there was just. Since people are listening. So you can fill the form out. Now. The requirement that they delete does not come into place until mid year, so they have six months until the right actually becomes real. But this is when you sign up, so it's not too late as I remember when.

So I don't know how many to date because they'll basically be collecting the entire list until July and then the data brokers will be obligated to act upon it at that point. But I actually was in Committee and missed a meeting with the privacy agency an hour ago. So I don't know if my Committee got that answer.

What were you saying? Did this add an additional. Zero, I'm sorry.

The answer is over 100,000 people have already elected to delete.

What were you saying earlier in your comment? Does this add an additional.

So the Bill itself doesn't say that the data brokers. So elected officials will not be treated differently by the data brokers. So the data brokers. If you currently elect to be a part of the drop program, you fill out the form online. The data brokers have to, under the data broker law, not sell your data.

This doesn't give elected officials different deletion rights, if you will. It just means that every single elected official will automatically be subject to those rights so that we don't have to go through the process because we know there's a higher risk for us to be found.

And so I said that in part because the opposition was talking about exceptions to deletions. And we can have further conversations, but again, we're not setting forward what and how to delete once you get into the data broker database. Okay.

And then I have. May I just make a very brief response? We had just learned about these comments by technet, I believe it was yesterday. And so we are more than happy to continue to have conversations, see if there are areas the Bill can be strengthened. So we're open to that dialogue.

Can I just ask a process clarification so the data of public officials will be sent. Is this a new list that goes to the Secretary of State of personal information or is that information currently maintained?

They have it because you ran for office. And what? Zero, that's the same information.

Zero, okay. All right. So I'm just thinking in a worst case scenario if that, if the Secretary of State is hacked, does all this personal information.

It's already there.

It's already there. All right. So.

Assembly Mayor Pellerin, thank you for this Bill. It's great. I'm just wondering, to also enhance its features, also talk to the county elections officials to see if this is information just to get to candidates when they're. Running for office so they're aware of. What'S available to them should they be elected Assembly Member.

Do you see that as being a potential tenant of the Bill or just a practice that should take place?

I think it's just something that they should be made aware of and available to keep candidates when they come in. So they know that that's. That's new to me. I was surprised. I'm like, zero, I didn't realize I. Could be doing this.

Yeah, very helpful thought.

Yeah, just throw that out.

And I will say just in response to that. So the story of this becoming a joint Bill was after the incidents of last year, the murder of elected officials. I introduced a Bill, frankly, not knowing this Bill was sitting out there. And so we both had bills. We decided to merge them in this vehicle.

And I did have conversations about this because it is actually, frankly, very straightforward for us to get privacy agency. The list of state and federal officials, local officials, is much harder as we understand it.

And so there have been discussions about, you know, we all know when you pull papers and you file to run, you're given a lot of information by your local county Clerk. And so we have had discussions about this being included in that package. So I think that's good feedback.

Right. And judges appointed officials.

Mr. Ryan? No, I just want to thank the author for bringing this Bill forward. I've received many, many letters to my office calling for me to be lynched and all kinds of things over the last five years. And I know we have a number of colleagues who have received personal phone calls and other just horrifying incidents.

I think it's an incredibly unsafe time for a lot of folks in this country, including threats of political violence. And so thank you for bringing this forward, and I'm happy to join you as a co author, if you'll have.

Yeah. Somewhere.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I want to compliment the author and the chair. You guys engaged in a conversation with me this morning that you are obviously very open to getting this exactly where it needs to be. So I want to appreciate that. And to my colleague's point, you know, unfortunately, I was very grateful.

It was just a tomato, but I had a tomato thrown at me by a protester. We're told horrible things on social media, unfortunately, it is terrifying that, you know, I have to check in with my parents throughout the day to let them know that I'm okay. We have to bring the temperature down. So there's my little soapbox.

I do want to address. Just if I can ask the opposition. Are you guys. You guys aren't asking to reopen the data brokerage piece of this. Correct.

If I may. Okay. So correct. We're not looking to reopen. We're just looking for alignment with. With the act. So with understanding the exception, understanding that the Bill calls for a five day. Five day processing, asking for flexibility in that timeline.

So not necessarily reopening, just you know, some alignment, but just the five day timeline seems unworkable for some of our Member companies.

Okay. I must have misunderstander testimony. I apologize for that. The timeline piece obviously is here. I thought you were talking about what was deleted and I was. That's not actually the subject of the Bill, so. Right.

So that. That brings me optimism. It sounds like there's flexibility on both sides. I'm going to encourage both sides too. So I will be supporting the Bill today because of your commit. I appreciate that in opposition. I hope you do the same thing to engage with our authors. So with that if there's.

I think there's a motion a second. But thank you.

Seeing no further questions or comments. I think I've spoken more than you selling Members. So I will let you close.

I. Am grateful for the alignment here and myself and the frog in my throat. Respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

We have a motion and a second. Clerk will call the roll.

Item number two AB883 by Assemblymember Lowenthal. The motion is do passed to the preparations Committee. Bauer. Cahan. Aye. Our Cahan. Aye. Dixon. Dixon. Aye. Bennett. Brian.

Did we need a second or do you have one? Okay, wait. Okay. If you don't know who this is. Sorry. I'm just saying she didn't know that we had a second. Do you mind being the second? Thank you. Okay.

Okay. Okay. For AB 883. Brian. Brian I. DeMayo. Irwin. Erwin I. Lowenthal I. Lowenthal I. Macedo. Macedo I. McKinner I. McKinner I. Ortega. Ortega I. Patterson. Pellerin. Pellerin I. Petrie. Norris. Ward. Ward I. Wicks. How many votes? 11.

That has 11 votes, but we'll leave it open for absent Members. Thank you. Assembly Member. Did we need to open the roll on the Addis Bill for anybody? Okay, great. Thank you everyone for being so prompt and here. So we are waiting on Assembly Members Demaio, Bennett and Patterson.

No, please try again. How popular it was. Getting stuck.

We will open the roll for absent Members. We will start with AB883.

AB883, the motion is.

That Bill has 13 votes. We will leave the roll open for the absent Member. AB 1159.

AB 1159, the motion is due pass to the Judiciary Committee. Chair voting aye. Vice chair not voting. Bennett. Demaio, No. Demaio, No. Petrie-Norris.

Thank you. And now we can reopen AB883 for Assembly Member Bennett. I did the first one. Yeah. Hi, thanks for being here.

AB883, the motion is due pass to the Appropriations Committee chair and vice chair voting aye. Bennett, Bennett, aye. Petrie-Norris.

So that Bill, AB 883 has 14-0. It is out.

AB 1159. By Assembly member Addis. The motion is due Pass to the Judiciary Committee. Chair voting aye. Vice chair not voting. Bennett. Bennett, aye. Petri-Norris.

That Bill has 11 to 2. It is out. And with that, we are adjourned.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett.