California Capitol Closeout: Key Highlights from the 2024 Legislative Session
As the 2024 California legislative session concludes, several noteworthy bills focused on regulating various aspects of the tech sector are worth exploring in greater depth. Popular themes emerged, including online safety and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential impacts on healthcare, employment decisions, discrimination, deepfakes, privacy, and election integrity. This session saw the introduction and passage of numerous bills aimed at regulating social media. Amid these discussions and government actions, it is critical to consider how these new regulations could reshape the landscape of technology and innovation in California and beyond.
AI was a prominent topic this session, with legislation introduced on issues such as deepfakes — particularly their use in politics — digital replicas, and strategies for mitigating harm from generative AI.
Without a doubt, protecting election integrity is a laudable and important goal — a goal shared by lawmakers, constituents, and industry stakeholders alike. Three bills were introduced this session, AB 2655, AB 2355, and AB 2839, all looking to combat political deepfakes. On September 17, Gov. Newsom signed all three pieces of legislation.
Another significant bill that gained attention this session was SB 1047, introduced by Senator Scott Wiener. The bill was initially designed to provide comprehensive regulations across various sectors of artificial intelligence, with SB 1047 placing a particular emphasis on generative AI. However, Gov. Newsom vetoed SB 1047 stating that the proposed law “does not take into account whether an Al system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data” but instead “applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions”. While Gov. Newsom also reiterated his commitment to ensuring that safety protocols are established, he also stressed the importance of taking the right approach.
Another noted topic of discussion this session was online safety, particularly concerning children. While the goal of ensuring children’s safety online is commendable, many proposals unfortunately missed the mark and strayed from federal law, at times conflicting with the First Amendment and Section 230. Despite numerous warnings that many of these proposals would not effectively benefit children, legislators proceeded to pass the bills..
For instance, Senator Nancy Skinner successfully advanced her bill, SB 976, which had stalled in 2023. While the bill aimed to safeguard children from online dangers, such as exposure to harmful content, its language would render compliance nearly impossible for most social media companies and conflicts with both Section 230 and the First Amendment. Despite these concerns being raised with Governor Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, he ultimately chose to sign the bill.
Lawmakers advanced two other online safety measures that were ultimately signed into law by Gov. Newsom. AB 2481 and SB 1504 both center on mandating that certain social media platforms implement new reporting mechanisms for content in addition to requiring covered platforms to respond in specific ways to these reports. Both bills raise concerns about technical feasibility at scale, while also raising questions about how each new law will fare in effectively achieving their stated goals of decreasing the prevalence of certain undesirable online behaviors, such as cyberbullying.
Finally, privacy remained a key legislative focus in California. While California was the first U.S. state to establish a comprehensive consumer data privacy framework, the state continues to introduce legislation that would amend existing law, all amidst the California Privacy Protection Agency’s ongoing rulemaking process. The potential changes to existing privacy law amid the growing patchwork of states with data privacy laws on the books could lead to an increasingly challenging and diverging set of compliance requirements for businesses.
For example, AB 3048 would effectively require universal opt-out mechanisms under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to transmit consumers’ opt-out preferences to businesses that they interact with online. Gov. Newsom vetoed the bill citing concerns that major mobile operating systems are unable to incorporate such an opt-out signal option, which could jeopardize the usability of mobile devices.
Similarly, AB 1949 would amend existing state law to generally prohibit the collection, sharing, sale, use, or disclosure of data for consumers under 18 years of age, absent affirmative consent. California is not alone in seeking to establish stronger privacy protections for younger users — Connecticut and Virginia, in particular, have recently passed measured approaches to address this important issue. However, the bill was vetoed by Governor Newsom on September 28.
Sacramento indubitably will continue to be a key driver in developments regarding technology policy. As the central hub for the tech sector and burgeoning hub for innovations associated with advances in AI technologies, California has the opportunity to foster further economic growth and development of products and services that carry the potential for vast benefits to consumers and society. Unfortunately, heavy-handed regulation that risks stifling such progress or infringing upon constitutional protections could prove harmful, not only to businesses located in the state, but well beyond its borders.
For a complete summary of developments from the 2024 California legislative session read the full article on CCIAnet.org.
