Tech Oversight California advocates for legislation that advances our mission of creating a healthier internet for Californians. We support policies that hold technology platforms accountable for harmful business practices, anti-competitive behavior, and threats to privacy and safety. Through the legislative process, we provide support, substantive feedback, and, when necessary, opposition to legislation. Bills we’re supporting in the 2025–2026 California State Legislature session include:
AB 2 – Social media platform Injuries to children: civil penalties (Lowenthal)
This bill creates enhanced penalties when social media companies breach the standard of care, resulting in harm to a child.
- Read our Letter of Support for AB 2
AB 56 – SOCIAL MEDIA WARNING LABELS (Bauer-Kahan)
This bill would require a social media platform to display a certain black box warning to a user at a set frequency each day the user initially accesses the social media platform.
AB 316 – A.I. defenses (Krell)
This bill would prohibit a defendant that developed or used artificial intelligence, as defined, from asserting a defense that the artificial intelligence autonomously caused harm to the plaintiff.
AB 325 – A.I. Pricing Algorithms (Aguiar-Curry)
This bill proposes amendments to the Cartwright Act to enhance antitrust enforcement.
AB 410 – Chatbot disclosure (Wilson)
This bill requires bots (automated programs that talk to people) to say they’re bots right away, answer honestly if someone asks, and not pretend to be human.
AB 446 – Surveillance Pricing (Ward)
This bill would prohibit a person from setting a price offered to a consumer based, in whole or in part, upon personally identifiable information gathered through an electronic surveillance technology, as defined, including electronic shelving labels, and specify civil penalties for violators.
AB 566 – Opt-Out Preference Signal (Lowenthal)
This bill would require browsers and mobile operating systems to include a setting that enables a consumer to send an opt-out preference signal.
AB 853 – California AI Transparency Act (Wicks)
This bill would require large online platforms to develop a way for users to easily access provenance data of uploaded content.
- Read our Letter of Support for AB 853
AB 1018 – Automated Decisions Safety Act (Bauer-Kahan)
This bill would create a comprehensive transparency regime for developers and deployers of ADS (basically anything that uses algorithms) that are used for consequential decision-making in order to prevent algorithmic discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics and to ensure that ADS can be trusted to perform reliably and accurately.
AB 1064 – the Leading Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act (Bauer-Kahan)
This bill prohibits the development and use of certain high-risk AI systems that are
intended to be used by or on children under age 18; prohibits the training of such systems on the personal information of children without parental or guardian consent; and provides a cause of action to the Attorney General for violations and to children who suffer actual harm as a result of the use of a covered AI system.
AB 1159 – Student Personal Information (Addis)
This bill would update and expand existing student data protections by clarifying and broadening their scope, extending their protections, and strengthening data minimization.
AB 1331 – Workplace surveillance (Elhawary)
This bill seeks to prohibit employers from using a workplace surveillance tool to monitor workers in off-duty areas, including their personal residence and vehicle, and during off-duty hours.
AB 1337 – Information Practices Act (Ward)
The bill would tighten restrictions on how agencies can use and disclose personal information. It prohibits agencies from using personal information for purposes other than those for which it was collected, except as required by law.
AB 1355 – Location Privacy ACT (Ward)
This bill would prohibit a covered entity from collecting or using the location information of an individual unless doing so is necessary to provide goods or services requested by that individual and the individual has expressly opted into the collection or use of their location information for that purpose.
SB 53 – CalCompute: foundation models: whistleblowers (WIENER)
This bill establishes a consortium tasked with developing a framework for a public cloud computing cluster that advances the ethical development and deployment of AI for the public good; creates protections for whistleblowers working with specified AI models when reporting on “critical risks”; and requires developers to provide processes for anonymous reporting of activities posing such risks.
SB 243 – A.I. Chatbots (Padilla)
This bill imposes a number of obligations on operators of “companion chatbot
platforms” in order to safeguard users.
- Read our Letter of Support for SB 243