CLA/TIP Monthly Call – Sacramento Update

Wednesday, December 11th at Noon Pacific Time
Dial-in number 855-520-7605 / Passcode 1211276419#

This fall I termed out as Chair of the Technology, Internet and Privacy (“TIP”) Working Group of the California Lawyer’s Association’s IP Section and as a member of the IP Section Executive Committee. I currently am co-chair of the CLA’s Business Law Section’s Internet and Privacy Law Committee.

On December 11th, however, I will be returning to the TIP monthly call to provide a California legislative update that goes beyond Cal-CPA.

Topics covered:

(1) AB 1202 – the Data Broker Registration Act (see separate blog post).

(2) AB 5 codifying the Dynamex decision (strongly opposed by Gig Economy players) (see separate blog post)

(3) AB 51 which prohibits California employers from requiring an applicant for employment or any employee to agree to mandatory arbitration as a condition of employment, continued employment, or the receipt of any employment-related benefit.

(4) AB 1215: The Body Camera Accountability Act which provides that a “law enforcement agency or law enforcement officer shall not install, activate, or use any biometric surveillance system in connection with an officer camera or data collected by an officer camera”. A test of facial recognition software conducted by the ACLU earlier this year showed an Amazon program mistakenly identified 26 California lawmakers as criminals.

(5) SB 1001 – The BOT Act passed in 2018 but went into effect in July makes it unlawful for any person to use a bot to communicate or interact with another person in California online, with the intent to mislead the other person about its artificial identity for the purpose of knowingly deceiving the person about the content of the communication in order to incentivize a purchase or sale of goods or services in a commercial transaction or to influence a vote in an election.

The Bot Act makes clear, however, that it does not impose a duty on service providers of online platforms, including, but not limited to, Web hosting and Internet service providers.

(6) But let us not forget AB 395 – Wildlife Traffic Safety Act which would create a pilot program:

for the issuance of wildlife salvage permits through a user-friendly and cell-phone-friendly web-based portal developed by the Department of Fish and Wildlife to persons desiring to recover, possess, use, or transport, for purposes of salvaging wild game meat for human consumption of, any deer, elk, pronghorn antelope, or wild pig that has been accidentally killed as a result of a vehicle collision on a roadway within California.

Could it be that if this iconic scene from The Graduate were filmed today, Mr. Macguire would instead say “roadkill” or “roadkill apps”?