Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law two landmark tech bills that are the first of their kind in the nation.
In 1972, decades before smartphones and location tracking became ubiquitous, Californians passed a ballot measure to insulate themselves against snooping.
At the time, the California Constitution granted certain “inalienable rights” — including the right to life, liberty, safety and happiness. But in a move that now seems prescient, California voters added a new entitlement: an explicit right to privacy.
In doing so, California one-upped the United States Constitution.
The Fourth Amendment, as you may know, protects people against unreasonable government searches and seizures. But Californians approved a broader privacy guarantee that protects residents against privacy invasions by the government and businesses.
I’m a technology reporter at The New York Times and I started delving into the state’s privacy pioneering last month after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two landmark tech bills in quick succession. The statutes are the first of their kind in the nation.
With members of Congress still wrangling over federal privacy and online safety legislation, the novel state rules illustrate how California has emerged as the nation’s de facto tech regulator. Legal experts call it “the California Effect.”
“California is a progressive and particularly effective tech and data regulator,” said Lothar Determann, a partner at Baker & McKenzie and the author of a compendium on California privacy law.
One of the new statutes, an online transparency effort, will require social networking platforms to publicly post their policies on hate speech and disinformation as well as provide details on their content moderation activities to the state.
The other, an online safety bill, will require social networks and other online services likely to be used by children to turn on the highest privacy settings by default for younger users. Platforms must also turn off features, like precise location tracking, that could put kids at risk.
“California has both a unique role to play, and a unique obligation, in part because a lot of these mega tech companies are homegrown companies,” Jordan Cunningham, a Republican member of the State Assembly who co-sponsored the children’s safety bill, told me. He added that a majority of Californians supported recent ballot measures on consumer privacy. “Momentum is on the side of reformers,” he said.
The spate of tech bills coming from Sacramento has also spurred critics. Determann said the State Legislature had passed so many new privacy measures, without repealing older laws that contain overlapping and sometimes conflicting requirements, that it was difficult for companies to understand the tangle of rules.
Whether you welcome the measures or view them as burdens on industry, the state’s tech laws have national implications for both consumers and companies.
Given California’s clout as the most populous state with the largest economy, many online services may simply make changes nationwide to comply with the new rules, rather than treat consumers in California differently. Then there’s the copycat effect.
California has a history of pioneering rules for digital tools. In 2002, it became the first U.S. state to enact a data breach notification law. In 2013, it passed the nation’s first eraser-button legislation enabling teens to delete the comments and videos they posted online. The next year, it enacted the first state law specifically protecting students’ personal information online. Dozens of states soon voted in similar measures.
California’s latest internet safety rules are also likely to spread. Four members of the New York State Senate just introduced a similar child protection bill.
As the author Joseph Lewis put it in his 1968 book on Ronald Reagan: “What happens in California today often happens in America tomorrow.”
Natasha Singer is a technology reporter for The Times who covers consumer privacy.
If you read one story, make it this
Los Angeles confronts its racial divide anew after a leak of racist comments.
The rest of the news
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Abortion rights: Gov. Gavin Newsom is spending $2.5 million to implore Californians to back a measure on the ballot that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state Constitution, Politico reports.
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Allergy season: Fall allergies are real. Here’s how to cope.
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Housing crisis: On a new episode of “The Daily,” the Times housing reporter Conor Dougherty explains how California has taken aim at a central tenet of the American dream: the single-family home.
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Pork case: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday considered whether California could address cruelty to animals by requiring that pork sold in the state come from breeding pigs housed in spaces that allow them to move around freely.
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
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Los Angeles City Council: Amid a nationwide furor over a leaked audio recording, the Los Angeles City Council president, Nury Martinez, said she would take a leave of absence. Ron Herrera, who was part of the secretly recorded conversation, resigned from his post as head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
For Oaxacans in the city, the council members’ racist remarks cut deep, The Los Angeles Times reports.
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Treasurer race: In the race for California’s top banker, Jack Guerrero, a Republican, faces the difficult task of trying to unseat the Democratic state treasurer Fiona Ma, who remains popular among California voters despite a string of scandals, The Los Angeles Times reports.
CENTRAL CALIFORNIA
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Coalinga drought: On the western edge of the Central Valley, the town of Coalinga has only one source of water and officials are projecting the city will use up that amount before the end of the year, The Washington Post reports.
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
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Rising tides: San Francisco is embarking on an almost existential task: planning how to prepare the city’s bay shoreline for as much as seven feet of sea level rise, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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Santa Clara sheriff trial: A former manager for a Silicon Valley security business testified at a Santa Clara County sheriff’s civil corruption trial, saying that he and the company’s chief executive agreed to provide political donations in exchange for concealed-weapons permits, The Associated Press reports.
What we’re eating
Whether you’re craving shakshuka or looking for a new weeknight chicken dinner, these one-pot recipes make cleanup a breeze.
Where we’re traveling
Today’s tip comes from Stephanie Madison, who lives in Benicia:
“As a Bay Area native, my favorite place is Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen. Housed in the park is London’s home with his wife. The home is set up to look like they still live there with clothes in the closet and personal items set out. A short hike to the Wolf House. A beautiful structure of locally harvested stones that create the frame of the Wolf House, which burned after completion because workers piled linseed oil rags which spontaneously combusted and burned the entire dream home. It was the beginning of bad times for London.”
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.
Tell us
Did you recently buy or rent a home in California? We want to hear from you.
The New York Times’s weekly real estate column, The Hunt, features everyday people who just moved and want to share their stories. If that’s you, get in touch with us at thehuntca@nytimes.com.
And before you go, some good news
A horticulture teacher from Minnesota set a new U.S. record this week for the heaviest pumpkin after growing a gourd that weighs 2,560 pounds, The Associated Press reports.
The teacher, Travis Gienger, drove the gargantuan squash for 35 hours to see his hard work pay off at the 49th World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay.
“You think driving in a snowstorm is bad? Try driving one of these things,” said Gienger, who also won the contest in 2020.
Thanks for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword.
Soumya Karlamangla, Briana Scalia, Steven Moity and Francis Mateo contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com.
California Enacts Major Tech Restrictions on Privacy, Safety - The New York Times
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