California bill would block companies from selling location data to ICE

San Francisco Chronicle​

24-06-2025

SACRAMENTO — In response to aggressive immigration raids, a California lawmaker is reviving a bill that would bar data brokers from selling consumers' precise location data.
The bill, AB322, aims to protect vulnerable people from a host of nefarious uses of their private data, including sexual assault victims, women seeking abortion care and people attending protests, said Assembly Member Chris Ward, D-San Diego. The measure is getting renewed attention in light of the immigration raids and massive protests in the Los Angeles area.
'We're seeing ICE raids across the state and we're seeing mothers, fathers, children being kidnapped from the streets of California,' Assembly Member Liz Ortega, D-San Leandro, said at a news conference announcing the legislation. 'This bill will ensure that our data is protected and that corporations and this government, the federal government, is not using it to weaponize our information to go after our beloved community members and taxpayers.'
The concern from Ortega, Ward and other supporters of the bill is that federal immigration agencies that have contracts with private data brokers will use immigrants' and protesters' precise location data silently collected by their phones, fitness trackers and social media apps to target them.
'Federal agencies are increasingly turning to powerful digital surveillance tools like geofencing and commercially purchased location data to track, target and detain individuals,' Ward said. 'Advocates warn that instead of warrants, agents are relying on this purchased data to monitor people's whereabouts, especially in sensitive locations.'
A previous, more ambitious version of the bill died last month in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. It faced steep opposition from tech companies, business groups and law enforcement. Tech companies argued the bill would have imposed unworkable requirements on them as they're already struggling to comply with California's landmark tech privacy laws. They also oppose limits in the legislation on companies' ability to collect and store location data.
The Cellular Telephone Industries Association, which represents cell phone companies, opposed the previous bill 'because it continues to raise security concerns and will create operational barriers and confusion, undermining critical goods and services that rely on location information,' Jack Lestock, an advocate with the group, told lawmakers in April.
Ward, the measure's author, said he's narrowed the bill somewhat, including by eliminating a provision that allowed people to sue companies and instead gives enforcement power to the state attorney general.
It remains to be seen whether the increased attention over immigration raids and narrowed scope will be enough for the bill to advance this time. It must clear both houses of the Legislature by Sept. 12 and be signed by the governor to become law.
CTIA and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees federal immigration enforcement, did not immediately respond to questions about the newly introduced version of the bill.
The bill isn't the first introduced in response to aggressive immigration raids and resulting protests in Southern California. Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill last week to limit when police officers can obscure their identity with masks amid widespread videos showing ICE agents obscuring their faces and hiding their identification during raids.