Key point: Of the 15 privacy and AI-related bills passed by the California legislature in the 2025 session that we have been tracking, Governor Gavin Newsom signed 10 into law and vetoed five.
Throughout the 2025 legislative session, we tracked numerous privacy and AI-related bills pending in California. Fifteen of those bills passed the state legislature before the legislative session ended in September. Of the 15 total bills, Newsom signed 10 into law and vetoed five. Those 10 bills that became law consist of three laws related to privacy and seven laws related to AI.
The below article provides a summary of the 10 bills that Newsom either signed into law or vetoed.
1. Bills Signed Into Law
Privacy Bills
AB 566 (Opt-out Preference Signal)
Effective January 1, 2027, the California Opt Me Out Act mandates that a business “shall not develop or maintain a browser that does not include functionality configurable by a consumer that enables the browser to send an opt-out preference signal to businesses which the consumer interacts with the browser.” An opt-out preference signal communicates the consumer’s choice to opt out of the sale or sharing of the consumer’s personal information. The functionality must be easy for a reasonable person to locate and configure, and businesses that develop or maintain browsers must make public disclosures about how the opt-out preference signal works. The California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) is given permissive rulemaking authority. The bill does not require that the signal be turned on by default.
AB 1043 (Age Verification Signals)
Effective January 1, 2027, the Digital Age Assurance Act requires operating system providers to collect age information from account holders to provide a signal of the user’s age bracket to apps in a covered app store. An operating system provider is a “person or entity that develops, licenses, or controls the operating system software on a computer, mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device.” A covered app store is “an online service or platform that distributes extensions, plug-ins, add-ons, or other software applications that run exclusively within a separate host application.”
Developers (i.e., the persons that own, maintain, or control apps) are required to request the signal from operating system providers or covered app stores when an app is downloaded and launched. When the developer receives the signal, it is deemed to have actual knowledge of the user’s age range.
The law contains further provisions regarding the treatment of pre-existing accounts, exceptions, and exemptions.
The law is enforceable by the attorney general. Violations will be subject to fines of $2,500 per affected child for each negligent violation and $7,500 per child for each intentional violation.
SB 361 (Data Brokers)
The bill amends California’s existing data broker registration law. We provided a summary article on the amended law here.
AI Bills
SB 53 (AI Models: Large Developers)
The law applies to frontier models. We provide a summary article of the law here.
AB 853 (California AI Transparency Act)
The bill amends last year’s California AI Transparency Act to add provisions relating to large online platforms and capture devices (i.e., a device that can record photographs, audio, or video content). It requires large online platforms to develop a method for users to access provenance data of uploaded content. Capture devices must provide users with an option to include a latent disclosure in content captured by the capture device that conveys certain provenance data. We will be publishing an article on the law shortly.
SB 243 (Companion Chatbots)
The law regulates the use of companion chatbots in the state and creates a private right of action. We will be publishing an article on the law shortly.
AB 325 (Cartwright Act: Violations)
The law makes it unlawful for a person to use or distribute a common pricing algorithm as part of a contract, combination in the form of a trust, or conspiracy to restrain trade or commerce in violation of the Cartwright Act. It also is unlawful for a person to use or distribute a common pricing algorithm if the person coerces another person to set or adopt a recommended price of commercial term recommended by the common pricing algorithm for the same or similar products or services in California. A common pricing algorithm is defined as “any methodology, including a computer, software, or other technology, used by two or more persons, that uses competitor data to recommend, align, stabilize, set, or otherwise influence a price of commercial term.”
AB 723 (Real Estate: Digitally Altered Images: Disclosure)
The law creates disclosure obligations for real estate developers that digitally alter images in an advertisement or other promotional material for the sale of real property.
AB 316 (AI: Defenses)
The bill states that “[i]n an action against a defendant who developed, modified, or used artificial intelligence that is alleged to have caused a harm to the plaintiff, it shall not be a defense, and the defendant may not assert, that the artificial intelligence autonomously caused the harm to the plaintiff.”
AB 489 (Health Care Professions: Deceptive Terms or Letters: AI)
The law extends the enforceability of existing title protection for various licensed health care professions to expressly apply against a person or entity who develops or deploys AI or generative AI technology.
2. Bills Vetoed
The governor vetoed one privacy bill and four AI-related bills:
- SB 771 (Social Media)
- SB 7 (Employment: Automated Decision Systems)
- AB 1064 (Leading Ethical AI Development (LEAD) for Kids Act)
- SB 11 (AI Technology)
- AB 682 (Health Care Coverage Reporting)
You can find summaries of these bills in our prior article.