June 8, 2026 · Privacy Digital Technologies · 7,021 words · 10 speakers · 21 segments
Thank you. Thank you. The Senate Committee on Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection will come to order. Good afternoon, everyone. Today we'll be taking up three assembly bills as part of our regular hearing. We have no consent calendar. I know bills have been pulled. We do not yet have a quorum, so we'll begin as a subcommittee, but I urge any members of the committee within the sound of my voice or whose offices are to please come to room 2100 for the hearing. So we'll defer calling the roll and proceed. Our hearing moves in file order, so we're going to take up first AB 412 by Assemblymember Bauer-Cahan. Welcome. And proceed when you're ready.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And it's my first time before the committee, so it's wonderful to be here. Thank you for having me. Good afternoon, Chair and Senators. I want to start by thanking committee staff and, of course, the Chair for their hard work on this bill. I'll be accepting committee amendments today, which significantly narrow the bill by removing prescriptive technical language throughout the bill. Today I'm proud to present AB 412, the AI Copyright Transparency Act. I introduced AB 412 for one simple reason. I believe in copyright law, and I believe in the right of copyright owners to have a right to know whether their materials are used to train Gen AI. When developers use copyrighted materials to train AI, they don't always get consent, although I will note that often we are seeing a world in which they are buying the rights of these materials, which is an important piece of the puzzle. but often our rights holders don't know, unless there is an agreement, whether their work is used to train the generative AI. AB 412 does not say whether or how models can be trained. It merely requires developers to let rights holders know if their copyrighted material was used to train the generative AI. It doesn't require developers to compensate copyright owners. It doesn't change copyright law at all. This is a transparency bill and one that I think is incredibly important for the future of rights in California and generative AI. With me today in support of the bill are Tim Friedlander, founder and president of the National Association of Voice Actors, and Dr. Ben Zhao, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. I think they come up. Mr. Chairman.
Yes they come up to the table And welcome And you will have two minutes Hello Thank you
It's great to be here today. My name is Tim Friedlander. I am the president and co-founder of the National Association of Voice Actors. We are a co-sponsor of AB412. I'm also the co-founder of CCAI, the Creators Coalition on AI, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Kwan, among other artist rights advocates. I'm also a full-time working voice actor and professional musician. Last Friday, I returned from my 106th meeting in Washington, D.C., where I presented to the Democratic Caucus on AI. I've also presented to the UN twice on artist rights and most recently to the government of Finland. These discussions have not been about regulating AI. They have been about ensuring the rights of artists and creators to protect their original creative works. Creative jobs are real jobs. The NEA and Copyright Alliance show creators account for 7.5% of California's economy, with over 1.5 million creators contributing more than $430 billion to our GDP. Every day without transparency, that value diminishes, and California risks losing its position in the marketplace as the cultural driver of the world. Our works have been taken and used by AI companies. This is not up for debate. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon recently stated that AI apps are using other people's content without permission. that artists aren't being compensated, and that the artist community and their IP need to be brought into the conversation. In this country, we have a constitutional right to protect what we create, but we cannot exercise that right if we don't know where our copyrighted material is. For voice actors, our biometric data is embedded in that material. Without knowing where our voice is being used, we risk losing control of our own identifiable biometric data. We've heard and will continue to hear that it's not feasible to track AI training data, But this is a supply chain issue, and California knows supply chains. We expect our aerospace industry to track billions of fiscal parts across the lifespan of an aircraft. It's reasonable to ask the same of companies building the most advanced technology humans have ever known. We are not against innovation, but innovation built on theft is exploitation. We do not allow businesses to be built on stolen property or labor. We should not allow it now. California can lead in innovation in protecting the artists responsible for so much of global culture. A simple bill letting copyright holders know if their works are built will change this. I highly encourage and I vote on AB 412. Thank you.
Thank you.
So first I'd like to thank the chair and members of the committee for giving me the opportunity to speak on this matter. I'm a chairful professor of computer science at University of Chicago. I completed my graduate degrees many decades ago, barely around the turn of the century. So I've been a professor for 22 years, most of which has been spent on research on AI, security, data, various topics related to those kind of things. So I've received a number of awards. I'm a fellow of the ACM, NSF career, MIT Young Investigator Innovator Award, blah, blah. For my research in the last few years, I've been named to Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in AI, as I think one of four or five faculty, most of it's industry folks, as well as the Usenik's Internet Defense Prize, a TED AI speaker, Concept Art Association Community Impact Award, and some other random awards on best papers and whatnot. So I am on the technical committee of all of the top security conferences and area chair for the top two AI conferences ICML and YARPS I spent much of my last four years ever since the arrival of gender of AI developing research tools to protect human creatives from the misuses of AI. My tools Glaze and Nightshade have been downloaded over 13 million times across the globe, something like 170 countries-ish. However, they only protect visual artists against very specific types of misuse. Glades, for example, targets style memory. They have also been the constant targets of attack by numerous AI companies and research groups. They also cannot protect creatives in other modalities like authors, voice actors, musicians, or video creators. So I'm here to talk mostly about the tech behind AB412 and this transparency bill. The idea that identifying multiple computer files that are duplicates are very similar to each other. Oh, okay. This is a well-known technology. It is in all storage industries today. Dell, NetApp, HP all have product lines that target specifically this. If you have your handout to you, I'm not sure, but there's a handout with a full implementation of the software that's also running online. at high speed. So just for that she's really question. Thank you
Minutes gets away from you quickly so appreciate it and we do have the handout as well. Are there other witnesses that would like to testify in support of the baby 412 with your name affiliation if any and your position on the bill only please come to the stand up Mike
Chair and members of the committee Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Labor Federation in support
Dean Iglesrud, Concept Art Association. We are co-sponsors of AB 412. I am also the co-chair of the LA County Democratic Party's Legislative Action Committee and we are in support as is the California Democratic Party which represents 10 million registered Democrats in California. Thank you.
I'm Matthew Parham, Director of Operations for the National Association of Voice Actors, a spoken word artist, and a photographer. We are a co-sponsor of this bill and I am supporting a yes on AB 412.
Good afternoon. My name is Randy Thomas. I am a voiceover known mostly for first woman in history to announce the Oscars 10 times, 20 years of announcing Tony Awards. Many years ago, I was the voice of Hooked on Phonics. Call 1-800-ABCDEFG. I am here today to support AB142. 412, sorry.
Hi, my name is Rachel Rego. I am a voice actor. My child care is also a voice actor, so I'm here with this. I'm the voice to brands like Bank of America, Toyota, Uber, many, many more. I'm a voice on NBC, Discovery Channel, ABC, and I am really, really in support of AB412.
Thank you. She is so cute. Damon Allams from Stockton, California, professional voice actor standing in support of AB412. Hi, my name is Zach Berger. I'm a film concept artist, a member of IOTC Local 800. I took a day off work today and flew here from Los Angeles to tell you that I am in support of AB412. Thanks. Hi, I am Scott Gessler. I drove here from Santa Cruz California today I a concept artist in the film industry as well and yeah drove here to support AB 412 Hi, my name is Nicole Longfish and I am an artist that lives in Davis, California. I also help run the mentorship program at Concept Art Association and I support AB 412. My name is Della Longfish. I work in the video game industry. I'm an associate art director and work for companies as Sony PlayStation and LucasArts. And I'm also in support of AB412. My name is Luke Berliner. I work out of Los Angeles. I'm a concept artist and art director in the video game industry working on AAA games. I've also worked in TV animation as a member of the Animation Guild. I support AB412. Doug Stanit, Fremont, California, working artist for 34 years. Film credits include Shrek 2, How to Train Your Dragon. I support AB 412. Thank you. My name is Alexandria Lee Goldman from Oakland, California. I do scientific illustrations for textbooks and scientific journal articles. I support AB 412. Hello, I am Bolu Oriowo here in Sacramento, California, here as a 3D character animator, 2D storyboard artist and comic illustrator and college professor, and I'm here on behalf of my students, my peers, and myself in support of AB412. Hi, my name is Hung Booy. I'm a freelance game developer, concept artist, and also a 3D modeler. I'm also in support of AB 412. Good afternoon. Shane Gusman on behalf of SAG-AFTRA, proud co-sponsor of the bill and in support of 412. Hi, my name is Dani Lin. I'm a member of and the president of the Animation Guild IATSE Local 839. I'm a storyboard artist for animated shows like We Bare Bears and Adventure Time, and I support AB 412. Hi, my name is Erin Rozelle. I'm a voice actor, and I support AB 412. Good afternoon, my name is Rob Sogamonia and I'm from Concord, California. I am a voice actor. I have co-founded an audio drama production studio called Articulate Studios and I support AB 412. Hi, my name is Amy Stafford and I'm a voice actor so can't do anything without a script. I'm a proud NAVA member and founder of NorCal Voices. I'm sorry. I'm fired. Right here in the Northern California area, we're a coalition of voice actors in this area and I myself live in Rockland, California. You may have heard me as the brand voice of Cadillac. I voiced for Uber, Chase, Disneyland and many others and my children are also voice actors. We would very much appreciate your iVote on AB412. Thank you. Hi, I'm Colin Fix. I'm from the San Francisco East Bay. I'm a concept artist working in film, animation and video games. I've worked on such franchises, Bioshock, Star Wars, and God of War. I'm also a teacher at San Jose State University who teaches visual development as well, and I'm in support of AB412. Hi, my name is Paul Nguyen. I'm from San Jose. I'm a concept artist and art director, and I've worked in studios such as Lucasfilm, Nickelodeon, and most recently in the tech industry at Meta, and I am in support of AB412. Thank you. Hello, my name is Brian Rivera. I'm a proud union member of SAG-AFTRA as well as Actors' Equity Association. I live right here in Sacramento. I'm a professional voice actor as well as audiobook narrator, and I stand here in support of AB412. Hi, my name is Annie Fix. I live in Hercules, California. I'm an artist. I also have three of my children hope to be professional artists someday, so I'm here to speak in favor of AB412. My name is Jason Courtney. I'm from Oakland, California. I'm an artist, a concept artist with, who had a decades long career in concept art for companies like DreamWorks, Electronic Arts, and Telltale Games. I strongly support AB 412. My name is Dax Fix and I'm from Hercules, California. And I'm an Animation Illustration major at SJSU and I'm in support of AB 412. Hi, I'm Dave Chai. I'm the program director of the Animation Illustration Program at San Jose State University. And on behalf of our students and alumni, I'd like to support AB 412. Hi, I'm Tom Austin. I also work at San Jose State. I teach animation, 3D modeling, and before that I had 40 years of programming experience. And I also support AB 412. Good afternoon. My name is Nathan Rangel. I'm with American Roots Theater, actor, director, producer, and I'm in strong support of AB 412. And thank you to the Assemblywoman and to the Senators for your service and your consideration. All right. Thank you to all the witnesses, and especially those who've traveled, to be with us today. We're going to turn next to the lead witnesses in opposition. So we will now consider two witnesses in opposition to AB 412. And just as with the supporters, you'll have two minutes each. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to you and to members of the committee. I'm Adam Isgrau with Chamber of Progress. Thank you for this chance to testify on AB 412. While I understand the sincere concerns driving it, I respectfully urge a no vote on AB 412. The bill is designed to help rights holders determine whether their works were used in and AI training and to exercise legal claims based on that information. But the committee's own staff analysis recognizes that whether AI training constitutes copyright infringement remains a significant unresolved legal issue. Two recent decisions from the Northern District of California have found that AI training can qualify as non-infringing, which is to say not illegal fair use while leaving other questions for future cases. With more than 100 such copyright cases still moving through the federal courts, the legislature should not put rules in place before those courts can settle these questions. Putting the legal issues aside, the bill's core mechanism remains technically infeasible. The first challenge is accuracy. The bill, as introduced, relies on approximate fingerprinting technology that must somehow be both uniquely identifying and tolerant of modifications Those goals are fundamentally intention producing unavoidable false positives and false negatives Having not yet seen the referenced amended text, it's important to note that any technology that seeks to meet the same objectives will inherently face the same hurdles. The second challenge is scale. Text, images, audio, video, software code, other media all present different technical challenges. There is no single fingerprint system or comparable system that can reliably work across every content type that the bill covers. The third challenge is ownership. Even if content can be identified, the committee's analysis itself notes that determining the current copyright owner is often difficult, especially for older, licensed, and collaborative works or content widely distributed online. In sum, AB 412 gets ahead of both the law and the technology. It creates obligations based on copyrighted rights that federal courts are still defining, and it relies on technical mechanisms that experts have concluded are inaccurate, unscalable, and unworkable. We urge a no vote. Thank you very much. Thank you. And our second witness in opposition. Welcome. Good afternoon. My name is Trudy Aragbillom, and I founded an app called Beatmatch in Los Angeles. I oppose AB412 because it imposes costly and complex requirements that could significantly harm startups like mine. I've always loved music, and I still DJ on the weekends. I started Beatmatch so music lovers could build communities and connect. My app integrates with users' music streaming services to train our AI model on their music preferences, make recommendations, and notify them when concerts and events are in town and help them connect with fans of similar music tastes. AB412 would require us to document every song that helps the model understand our users. Since we integrate with users' music streaming services, this includes every song they listen to ever. We then have to cross-reference that with the U.S. copyright database, identify the right holders for each song, publish this list, and then notify all rights holders within 30 days. We're a team of three. We have over 10,000 users, and startups like mine don't have the funds or the bandwidth to meet compliance requirements. Even the cost of hiring lawyers to simply determine which AI outputs may no longer trigger compliance with the law would be substantial. As a musician, I appreciate copyright rules. My app does not copy songs or use them to make our own music. Even if it did, copyright rules are already in place to protect artists' work. Thank you, and I respectfully urge you to oppose AB 412. Thank you. Are there other witnesses who would like to provide testimony in opposition, and by testimony I mean identifying yourself by name, affiliation, if any, and your position on the bill? Thanks for coming to the stand-up mic. Good afternoon, Roanoke DeLamy with CalChamber, respectfully opposed. Thank you. Good afternoon, Ashanti Smith with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in respectful opposition. Good afternoon, Yerale Magallion on behalf of the Business Software Alliance in opposition. Thank you. Good afternoon, Annalie Augustine with the Civil Justice Association of California, also respectfully opposed. Thank you. Rebecca Kramer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. We appreciate the amendments that were taken last month We are still reviewing the amendments from the analysis today but as the bill is in print we are in respectful opposition Good afternoon Robert Boykin with TechNet in opposition Thank you Good afternoon, Naomi Padron on behalf of California's credit unions and also on behalf of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, respectfully in opposition. Thank you. Good afternoon. Molly Corcoran on behalf of American Innovators Network and respectful opposition. Thank you. Good afternoon, Jackie. On behalf of the Consumer Technology Association, respectfully opposed. Thank you. All right. Thanks to all of our witnesses. Let me just also just to reinforce the author has agreed to the amendments that are in the analysis. The amendments are described, but they cover the portion, they excise the portion of the bill that deals with all the documents, covered documents, so it focuses on the mechanism by which rights owners can query the system directly as opposed to cataloging every single right that it might, that a data set may have been trained upon. So we realize that the amendments are brand new because they are in the analysis only, But just to clarify, that's where the bill is at as the author has agreed to author's amendments. So are there questions or comments from members of the committee? Senator McNerney. I just have a comment, and I don't think it's a question, but we'll find out. I mean, there's a big difference in my mind between asking a model, an AI model, to tell you where something came from and being able to ask the author of the model to tell you what went into it. And so what's left here in this bill is that you have to be able to tell you inquirers what went into the bill rather than being able to tell from output where it came from. Is that correct? Yeah, the bill, Mr. Chair, the bill focuses on a rights holder, so someone who is copyrighted material being able to inquire with the system whether their copyrighted material was used in the training. So yes, I believe so. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right, before we proceed, it looks like we might have a quorum, so let's find out by asking the committee assistant to call the roll. Senators Cabaldon? Here. Cabaldon here. Jones? Gonzalez? Here. Gonzalez here. McNerney? Here. McNerney here. Ochoa Bogue? Padilla? Reyes? Here. Reyes here. Humberg? Wiener. Wiener present. A quorum is present. All right, further questions or comments? Senator Gonzalez. Thank you so much. And I first want to say thanks for bringing this forward. I know these are, you never have some easy ones, but they're certainly righteous, and I appreciate that. But I do want to ask a question that you may have mentioned this in your opening as to the feasibility overall. And I know some of the amendments may lend to that, but how do you feel that this would be a bit easier to feasibly implement and for these developers to comply with to ensure that this actually does get to the integrity of keeping copyrighted materials in line with your bill? Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sure. So thank you for the question. And actually, prior to the formation of this committee, the bill was in Senate Judiciary, and we did a joint hearing in the fall to look at this precise question. It's actually what caused it to become a two-year bill. And the amendments that you see today really come out of that work that we did in looking at that. But one of the things, and I want to turn it over to my witness if I can but I just want to start But one of the things that happened in that hearing as we were investigating technical feasibility was there is a nonprofit that is set out to do this and they did a live presentation for us which I actually thought was fairly risky frankly because you didn't know if it was going to work. And they used images of us, other copyrighted images, and were able to query public-facing data sets that we know are training AI, but obviously we don't know everything that goes into AI. And within an instant, they're able to see yes or no, which is really all the bill requires. And so that type of technology already exists. But I know that Professor Zhao is here because he can provide much more color to the feasibility. So if you don't mind, Mr. Chair. The big question. Yes. Some color, please. A little bit, just a little bit. Yeah, I mean, in general, this is well-known technology. I first published a paper on this in 2003 when I was still a grad student. And even before then, the original algorithm that does this was actually published by the then CTO of Yahoo, the company that no longer exists. But that was in 1993. Since then, there have been probably close to two dozen research papers published on similar algorithms in different modalities, images, sound, text, all sorts of different forms in different research areas, including one research paper by the then PhD student who would eventually become co-founder of Google, Sergey Brin. So, yeah, so this is very well understood. It is deployed on a daily basis. If you ever use Norton Utilities, that has a version of that inside, because when you run and you ask for, tell me where all the extra copies of my files are on my hard drive, that is one of the tools that's being run. So, yeah, it is very much alive and all around us in reality. I would just hope that after the build, and I know you will absolutely do this, is because we're talking a very, like, in-depth technical talk here, but for the public and the greater public that they understand this in very layperson's terms. So it actually will, you know, a lot of folks don't know that there are these platforms that already exist that do this. I know you're shaking your head because it's true, but we want to make sure that it absolutely can be for public consumption a little bit, you know, easier. So, yeah. Thank you, Senator. Appreciate that. Other questions or comments? Senator Umberg. I know here. In the corner, we've got you. Thank you, Assemblymember Bauer-Key, and thank you for all the work you've done on this and the hearing that we did at Stanford Law School. I have not had a chance to meet with all the stakeholders. I've got a pile of requests. I'm not going to be supportive. It doesn't mean I won't be supportive. It just means that for today, I'm not going to be casting an aye vote, but more to follow. So thank you. Thank you, Senator. All right, now anyone else? Well, I want to begin by just acknowledging that this bill, like so many other bills, is our best, is the best efforts that we can make to try to keep up with the technology, the law, the court cases, and all of that. So we will never, in this environment with these technologies, we're not going to keep up. and completely off topic aside, I will note we're able to keep up faster than any federal agency. So, you know, congressional committees take this up once a decade and the White House doesn't know the technology at all. So, we're better off than the alternative. But all of our legislating is really iterative and it's learning in this space. And if we turn the clock back to two years ago, many of these issues, we couldn't have anticipated these. And we will get some of this wrong. And so, we're trying figure out how to be how to respond to a very real challenge that the California uniquely is is facing because the creative economy the scientific economy this is is a feature of California's California more than really any other state in the country and maybe any other place on the planet and so we have a particular interest in making sure that that works are are respected here now we are trying to walk a fine line here we do not have responsibility for copyright law and that's not been my my focus in reviewing this bill because it will go next to the judiciary committee which is focused principally there um and instead our focus has been on on the the underlying policy and particularly on this technical question that senator gonzalez raises that is that may be opaque to everyone including us but it's really it's really the key one we do want to make sure that the systems can work and that they're feasible. And, you know, we've had, you know, and that they will mean something, right? And so, you know, some of the policy questions around this bill remain. I mean, we are dealing here with the ingesting of works, not the outputs. And I think there are reasonable questions about where the right place in the regulatory landscape might look, and there are other tools that are emerging that will, many of which are promised to potentially prevent this kind of large-scale capture of all these works that has characterized the industry so far in the future, or today, whether that's content AI or adding robots.txt files into things. I mean, there are, as you would expect, given an issue of this importance, lots of other people are working on it. are not waiting for laws. The market, creators, and the industry are coming up with other solutions as well. And so we also want to create space for those things to happen or for them to work and for them to be technically feasible. All of that said, I think it's one of the reasons why the focusing of the bill now specifically and exclusively on the right of creators, of rights holders, to be able to simply query the system can, has my work been used in the training data, is a much tighter, much narrower version. And I appreciated some of the arguments against the broader version. I didn't share them all. You know, the notion that we just can't possibly, like how could we possibly catalog every single thing that the AI models have been trained on? This will be a matter for the courts, obviously, but the fact that you've committed, if it's not fair use, the fact that you've committed a crime 10 million times does not make it less criminal than the fact that you committed it once. And we have to be able to enforce in those regards. There can't be a point in which this is administratively too difficult. But that's not really the issue here. The issue is we want to assure that the creators themselves have the ability to ask those questions. And I suspect in many cases they will find their works weren't used. And that's the end of the story. And that will avoid litigation. In other cases, it will be the opposite. So I very much appreciate the author's efforts to narrow here. I do think there continue to be some, you know, some of the opponents have raised, I think, live, relevant technical questions still at the margin here and there that are important to continue to address as this bill makes its long journey to the next committee if it passes here today. And further work will be required both then and obviously in years to come as well. But appreciate the author's amendments in this space, and I'll also be recommending an aye vote as well. All right If there no further discussion Assemblymember Bauke would you like to close Thank you Mr Chair and I want to thank you for your comments on this bill I think, first and foremost, I want to thank all the artists, Mr. Friedlinder, but also all the artists that showed up today. As you said, they are part of the backbone of California, whether it's our economy that they make thrive in many ways, but also just what makes California so magical, all the beautiful things we create as a state. and so I think it is so important that we lead in this regard in protecting the things that they have created. I also want to thank Professor Zhao for making the flight out because he really is one of the leading protectors of rights. I actually first heard about Professor Zhao from IATSE members who were using the tools he mentioned to protect their own works. You should look up his tools. They're pretty incredible. It allows for artists to put basically a protective mechanism on their work so that if it's used in an AI tool, it won't work, which is a magical way that technology is solving some of these problems. And so I probably butchered that, and Professor Zhao is probably cringing over there because I'm not the technical expert, which is why we have to rely on people like him. But this is really important work, and so I really appreciate the committee's efforts. And just wanted to acknowledge that one of the things the opposition said was about the legal claims that may or may not be exercised at the end of the information this bill will be providing. This bill doesn't focus on legal claims. It is really about transparency and knowledge. And honestly, I think that even if courts decide that it is fair use to train on this data, I don't believe the courts will ever decide that if they output a song that sounds exactly like Taylor Swift, that that is not a violation of copyright infringement. And the only way to know currently whether that was trained on Taylor Swift's albums, to know if you have a colorable claim, is to sue. And Taylor Swift can do that. But the artists in this room cannot. And so for them to know if an output looks just like their art, that that's because the model was trained on their art, is through the mechanism we are providing here today. And so I think it is critically important that we do this to protect the artists that we may not know their names, but are doing so much for our state. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. All right. Is there a motion? Been moved by Senator Gonzales. All right, with that, committee assistant, please call the roll on AB 412. The motion is do pass as amended to judiciary. Senators Cabaldon? Aye. Cabaldon, aye. Jones? Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzales, aye. McNerney? McNerney, aye. Ochoa Bogue? Padilla? Reyes? Aye. Reyes, aye. Umberg? Davodin? Weiner? Aye. to zero. Place that bill on call. Thank you, Assemblymember. Oh, there he is. All right. Our next author is present. Assemblymember Berman is here to present AB 2448. All right. The after party is somewhere other than this room, so we're We're going to proceed, Assemblymember Berman, when you're ready. Ironically, Assemblymember Barakian could probably present this bill. She's a joint author, and it's building upon her bill from a couple of years ago. In the years since Roe was overturned, attacks on reproductive and gender-affirming care have steadily intensified, threatening access to health care services for millions of Californians. As a result, it's critical that medical providers have access to technology to protect sensitive medical information so that patients who have received reproductive and gender-affirming care cannot be identified and targeted. AB 2448 would reinforce existing state law and require the implementation of this technology to protect the privacy and security of medical records All Californians deserve access to critical health care services without fear and I respectfully ask for your aye vote. And with me today are Angela Pontes with Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, and Tiffany Brokaw with the Attorney General's Office. Welcome to you both. You will each have two minutes. Thank you, Chair and members. Angela Pontus on behalf of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, representing the seven Planned Parenthood Affiliates across the state. We are here as a co-sponsor of AB 2448 and in strong support, thank you to the author for authoring this bill. In 2023, following the Dobbs decision, California passed AB 352 to strengthen privacy protections for sensitive health information like abortion care. AB 2448 follows up on this existing law by simply clarifying that electronic health records vendors must not only develop but also enable the technical capabilities needed for providers to protect their patients' data. Planned Parenthood health centers strongly believe that patients deserve access to health care without fear of legal or criminal consequences from data sharing. AB 2448 supports efforts currently underway to better coordinate patient care and protect patient confidentiality. At the same time, we ask for your aye vote. Hi, good afternoon. Tiffany Brokaw, Deputy Attorney General in the Office of Legislative Affairs, here on behalf of Attorney General Rob Bonta, who is proud to co-sponsor this bill with Planned Parenthood, and he'd like to thank Assemblymember Berman and Assemblymember Bauer-Cahan for authoring this. AB 2448 clarifies existing law by ensuring vendors of electronic health records are implementing operational safeguards so that healthcare providers can segregate and wall off sensitive health data. Increasing hostilities and threats nationwide against providers and patients of reproductive care have raised concerns about the potential misuse of reproductive-related information. AB 2448 builds on California's commitment to ensure patient privacy and protect those seeking reproductive care. And for these reasons, we respectfully ask for an aye vote. All right. Thanks to both of you. Now we're going to ask any witnesses in support who wish to come forward to provide your name, affiliation, if any, and your position on the bill. Mr. Chair and members, Anthony Molina on behalf of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine and Support. Thank you. Natalie Pito on behalf of the California Academy of Family Physicians in support. Andy Liebenbaum, County of Los Angeles, strong support. Kashif Kumar with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of Reproductive Freedom for All in strong support. Thank you. Becca Kramer with Kaiser Advocacy on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in strong support. Symphony Barbie on behalf of the ACLU CalAction in support. All right. Thanks to each and every one of you. Are there witnesses in opposition? All right. Seeing none, we'll turn to the committee for any questions or comments or for a motion. And we have a motion. All right. Assemblymember Berman, would you like to close?
Respectfully ask for a vote.
All right, committee assistant, please call the roll. The motion is due pass to Health. Senators Cabaldon? Aye. Cabaldon, aye. Jones? Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. McNerney? Aye. McNerney aye Ochoa Bogue Padilla Reyes Aye Reyes aye Umberg Aye Umberg aye Weiner Aye Weiner aye 6 Put that measure on call Thank you. Appreciate it. Good to see you all. We have one bill. Member Valencia to represent AB 2561. one. All right, we're lifting calls. Committee assistant, would you please call the roll on AB 412? is due pass as amended to judiciary. Current vote is 5-0. Senators Jones, Ochoa-Bogue? No. Ochoa-Bogue, no. Padilla? Umberg? 5-1. The vote's 5-1. We'll replace the call. AB 2448. The motion is due pass to health. The current vote is 6-0. Senators Jones, Ochoa-Bogue? No voting. Padilla? 6-0. The current vote is 6-0. We'll replace the call. Yeah, we're going to take a brief recess while we await the arrival of our final author. All right, reconvening the hearing, we're going to lift the calls on our first two bills. Committee assistant, please call the roll on AB 412. The motion is due pass as amended to Judiciary. The current vote is 5-1. Senators Jones? I'm sorry, this is 4-12. 4-12. No. Jones, no. Padilla, Umberg? Okay, the current vote is 5-2. We'll replace the call. And AB 2448, I'll file item 2. Motion is due pass to Health. The current vote is 6-0. Senators Jones? No. Jones, no. Echobo, Padilla? 6-1 on court. Current vote is 6-1. We'll replace the call on item 2. To recess momentarily while we wait for our final author. Thank you. Thank you. to return to lift call first on AB 412. Committee assistant please call the roll. The motion is due pass as amended to judiciary. The current vote is 5 to 2 with the chair voting aye and the vice chair voting no. Senators Padilla? Padilla aye. 6 to 2. That one is out. All right, the vote is 6-2. That bill is out. AB 2448, the motion is due pass to health. The current vote is 6-1, with the chair voting aye and the vice chair voting no. Senators Ochoa-Bogue, Padilla. Aye. Padilla, aye. 7-1. The vote is 7-1. That bill is out. All right, so we're going to return to a brief recess while we await our final author. who's presenting in Banking and Finance Committee, but will be on his way shortly. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. All right reconvening the committee for the long AB 2561 This is going to be worth the wait. Assemblymember Felicia, welcome back.
Oh, goodness.
I wouldn't blame you, Senator. I wouldn't blame you. Proceed when you're ready.
Good afternoon. Apologies. I was concluding chairing making finance on the Assembly side. AB 2561 would ensure consumers maintain control over their preferred privacy settings by prohibiting changes without their consent. Despite efforts to maintain privacy protections and limit data sharing, users must consistently readjust privacy settings within their software and apps after an update. AB 2561 would reduce the burden of readjusting settings on consumers and would strengthen privacy protections. With that, happy to answer any questions.
All right. Thank you very much. Are there witnesses in support? Roanoke DeLamy on behalf of Cal Chamber. We were opposed in the Assembly. The Assemblymember took our amendments. We're very grateful for that, and we are in support. Thank you. Robert Boykin with TechNet echoing comments of Cal Chamber in support. Thank you. Any further witnesses in support? Any witnesses in opposition? Seeing done, we'll return to the committee for any questions, comments, or a motion. It's been moved by Senator Reyes. Assemblymember Valencia, would you like to close?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Apologies one more time, and I respectfully ask for a yes vote.
All right. Committee assistant, please call the roll. Motion is due pass. Senators Cabaldon? Aye. Cabaldon, aye. Jones? Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. McNarney? Aye. McNarney, aye. Ochoa Boa? Aye. Chobok, aye. Padilla? Padilla, aye. Reyes? Reyes, aye. Umberg? Umberg, aye. Weiner? Weiner, aye. No, no. All right, the vote is 8 to 0. That bill is out. With that, just to reinforce, we had only three bills today, but that's not a marker for the next several hearings of the committee we have we have quite a few left coming our way but thanks to the members to the authors and to all the folks from the public to testify with that the Senate committee on privacy digital technologies and consumer protection is adjourned