State Legislative Action

Recent Legislative Action

SB1 was among the most debated and lobbied issues in recent years and had already been rejected four times by the Assembly and considered defeated in this legislative session, until recently. Passage of the bill represents a reversal of the financial industry's four-year opposition to legislation by Senator Speier. Banks and insurance companies dropped their long-standing opposition to SB1 after a consumer rights group collected 600,000 signatures to place an initiative on the March 2004 ballot. The group, Californians for Privacy Now, gave legislators and banking groups an August 20, 2003, deadline to approve SB1 or watch the more restrictive privacy initiative go to the voters. (SB 1 at info.sen.ca.gov)

SB 27 (Figueroa) called the Personal Information Disclosure bill was introduced on December 2, 2002 by Senator Liz Figueroa. The bill would require businesses to tell customers that they have released information about them to marketers in the past or plan to in the future. The bill would require a business that discloses a customer's personal information to a third party for direct marketing purposes to provide the customer with written description of the sources and recipients of that information and copies of the information disclosed within 30 days after the customer's written request. The bill would also prohibit a business from conditioning the sale of goods or services on the customer's consent to that disclosure. In addition to the legal remedies provided under current law, a customer would be entitled to recover a civil penalty, up to $3,000, and attorneys' fees and costs for a violation of these provisions.
http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_0001-0050/sb_27_bill_20030430_amended_sen.html

Previous Consumer Privacy Legislation (2002 Session)

• SB 773 (Speier), the consumer financial information privacy bill would have required financial institutions to ask for and receive consumer's written permission before disclosing consumer's confidential information to nonaffiliated companies. On August 31, 2002, SB 773 passed in the Assembly after major amendments (51 ayes and 9 noes). The Senate refused to concur with Assembly amendments by a 1-33 vote and the bill failed passage August 31, 2002.
(SB 773 at info.sen.ca.gov)

• AB 2347 (Goldberg) would require financial institutions to obtain consumer consent before disclosing or sharing the consumer's "confidential consumer information" with any nonaffiliated, nonfinancial third party (an "opt-in" approach). The bill would require financial institutions to provide written notice to the consumer prior to disclosing their information. The language of this bill was similar to SB 773 (Speier). The bill was substantially amended in the Senate and the Assembly-approved provisions of this bill were deleted, making the amended Senate bill inconsistent with Assembly actions. The bill failed.

• AB 1155 (Dutra) on identity theft became state law on September 26, 2002. The bill establishes a new felony-misdemeanor if a person obtains, or assists another in obtaining, a driverâs license, identification card, vehicle registration certificate, or other official document issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. It also imposes a fine of $25,000 on a person who receives a felony conviction for conspiring to commit identity theft.
(AB 1155 at info.sen.ca.gov)