The California state Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted to hold some pieces of tech and innovation legislation, while letting others move out of “suspense” status. Those moving on may still become law, but some discussions will wait as the summer recess looms – July 2-13 for the Senate and Friday-July 13 for the Assembly. Among the takeaways:
• Senate Bill 1058, the “Digital Divide Relief Plan,” an urgency statute from state Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, has been held in Appropriations. It would have required the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to order Internet service providers to turn in yearly emergency operations plans on how they will ensure reliable communications during a disaster or local emergency; identified an affordable class of broadband Internet service to be offered “as emergency relief”; and ensured residents who don’t have broadband can keep their home phones “at affordable rates.” It would have also generated estimated implementation costs of around $600,000.
“The pandemic may not have created the digital divide, but it has poured fuel on the fire by increasing our reliance on broadband for basic needs while also dramatically raising the number of households that cannot afford internet plans,” Hueso told Techwire via email, indicating that, while “deeply disappointed” by the results, he remains committed to working on solutions to “address the digital divide."
• SB 980, from state Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, cleared Appropriations and will head to the Senate floor for a vote. If it passes, it will go to the Assembly for consideration. SB 980 would build on the California Consumer Privacy Act, creating the “Genetic Information Privacy Act” and prohibiting “a direct-to-consumer genetic or illness testing services company from disclosing a person’s genetic information to a third party without obtaining the person’s prior written consent.” It would regulate COVID-19 testing companies that aren’t covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), by not allowing them to share consumers’ biometric data without explicit consent; and would seek civil penalties for violations.
The federal Department of Defense “thinks it’s a national security issue. If you’ve got a right to your financial privacy, you should have a right to privacy for, basically, your components of your body,” Umberg told Techwire. Asked what prompted the Committee to vote it out of Appropriations, he added: “It’s because it’s shining a light on an area where there hasn’t been much conversation; but now there is a light shone, people are very interested.”
• SB 932, from state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, has also cleared Appropriations. It would require that electronic communicable-disease reporting tools used by the California Department of Public Health and local health officers be able to collect and report data relating to the sexual orientation and gender identity of people diagnosed with COVID-19. SB 932 would also require health-care providers that are aware of cases of COVID-19 or suspected cases report the patient’s “sexual orientation and gender identity, if known,” to a local health officer.
“The history of the LGBTQ community is a history of fighting against invisibility. It’s been a continuing fight against erasure. And data collection is part of that,” Wiener told Techwire. “That data is so important and yet we collect very little data about the LGBTQ community in any context.” SB 932 was sponsored by Equality California, a nonprofit civil rights group, but a committee analysis found it could have “indeterminate, ongoing cost pressures, for potential state-local mandate costs,” relating to increased work for local jurisdictions.
• SB 1130 from state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, passed Appropriations as amended. It would energize the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) program, created by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to spur rollout of “high-quality advanced communications services … that will promote, among other things, the substantial social benefits of advanced information and communications technologies.” The bill would require the CPUC to develop CASF specifically to encourage deployment of “21st century-ready communications,” and by Dec. 31, 2024, greenlight funding for “infrastructure projects that will provide high-capacity, future-proof infrastructure.” It would require the CPUC to approve infrastructure projects “with a goal of providing high-capacity, future-proof infrastructure to households that are unserved areas … or unserved high-poverty areas,” and prioritize work in unserved and high-poverty areas.
In a statement to Techwire, Gonzalez said she is “thrilled” SB 1130 passed and indicated the Committee’s amendments “clarify and address any potential cost issues with implementation of the bill and its future impact on the California Advanced Services Fund.”
• SB 1069, from state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, was held in Appropriations. It would have required telecommunications companies to do more when their infrastructure is out of service or not working, including notifying “the office of critical telecommunications infrastructure” of failures that would inhibit emergency notifications or 911 calls. It also would have mandated annual inventories of “critical telecommunications infrastructure” to the CPUC and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
