In Landmark Victory for Digital Privacy, Gov. Brown Signs California

The bill had the backing of industry heavyweights, including Apple, Google, and Facebook.

The American Civil Liberties Union described the passage of the law as a landmark win.

“Students all over the state have been facing almost insurmountable challenges as they try to manage their debt and find their way to other educational institutions”, Angela Perry, Law Fellow at Public Advocates, said in a statement. Privacy and digital rights groups hailed the decision as an important step in protecting personal data. The bill requiring law enforcement to obtain a search warrant to access certain electronic communication was approved alongside dozens of other bills.

The bill was authored by openly gay Senator Mark Leno and co-sponsored by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), Equality California and the Transgender Law Center. The measure includes exemptions for instances where a loss of life or evidence is imminent, which Leno said helped remove law enforcement opposition that had stifled previous efforts. This bipartisan bill protects Californians’ basic civil liberties as the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution intended.

Criticism has been rising as law enforcement took advantage of technological advances and a lag in privacy laws. They argued that previous California law dating back to the 1980s was in desperate need of an update given the dramatic changes in the digital world.

Brown objected to a provision that would have created a new, state-funded program to give legal aid to students seeking federal student-loan debt relief, calling it “premature”. Closing the loophole (as Senator Leno mentioned) shows that the California Legislature-true to its agenda over the last decade-continues to not only “talk the talk”, but “walk the walk” in pursuing equality under the law for every one of its citizens, including transgender workers and preventing discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics. It requires the authorities to obtain a search warrant before rummaging through someone’s private emails, text messages and Global Positioning System data whether it’s stored on a smartphone, a computer or a remote server. It raises the bar for just about any kind of digital surveillance, whether that involves police requesting user information from a company or collecting it themselves.

“It really is a true update of privacy law for the digital world, making sure that sensitive information about who we are, and where we go, and what we do, and who we know is protected from government intrusion”, Ozer said.

Governor Brown had rejected several similar proposals in past years, but on Thursday he signed the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act.