California SB 362 Passes Through Assembly Appropriations Committee 10–3
California Senate Bill 362 (SB 362) — the California Delete Act — passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee with a 10–3 vote on Friday, September 1, 2023. It now moves on to the Assembly floor for a vote by the entire Assembly. If it passes the floor vote, it will go back to the State Senate (where it previously passed 32–8) as amendments were made while the bill was in the Assembly (e.g., with the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee where it passed with a vote of 7–0).
If it passes both houses of the California legislature (first the Assembly then the Senate), it goes on to Governor Newsom for signature or veto. No doubt how the bill further protects reproductive rights should be appealing to him given his strong pro-choice stance, as it is clear red states are aiming to acquire or subpoena location data from data brokers to track people getting abortions (e.g. the Alabama attorney general says he has the right to prosecute people who facilitate travel for out-of-state abortions and Texas towns are saying it is illegal to facilitate an abortion when driving on their roads). Plus there has been increased usage of “people search” data brokers to dox abortion providers.
But I don’t want to get too far ahead as the bill still has to pass the Assembly and then the Senate, so it has a ways to go and no doubt many twists and turns before it hopefully hits the Governor’s desk.
As a reminder, SB 362 would create an online portal for consumers to request that data brokers delete any data they have on the consumer and no longer track them. It builds upon California’s existing data broker registry law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (as amended by Proposition 24, the California Privacy Rights Act), and California’s inalienable right to obtain and pursue privacy (which was added in the early 1970s to our State Constitution). SB 362 is based on pre-existing proposals such as Senator Ossoff’s and Cassidy’s 2022 federal DELETE Act proposal, Tim Cook’s 2019 proposal regarding a data broker clearinghouse, my ideas in 2020 for consumer-facing portals on top of California’s breach notification database and data broker registry, Section 206 of the 2022 ADPPA that calls for a global deletion mechanism for data brokers, and the FTC Do Not Call registry. So, this concept has been kicking around for years and has greater urgency given the increasing weaponization of personal data that is collected and sold by data brokers.
Finally, it should be noted the bill has widespread support with Californians surveyed — 81% support.
