California’s pioneering privacy agency is stepping back from efforts to oversee artificial intelligence and other types of automated technology.
The
California Privacy Protection Agency
felt compelled to retreat from the regulations they had formulated. Business organizations,
lawmakers
, Governor Gavin Newsom stated that these measures could impose significant costs on businesses, possibly hinder innovation, and override the legislative authority’s power to regulate AI as intended.
have proliferated.
Last week, the agency’s board reached a consensus to loosen the regulations, reducing the safety measures applied to AI-like systems.
Staff at the agency estimate that the modifications decrease the expense for businesses to adhere in the initial year of implementation from approximately $834 million down to around $143 million. They also forecast that 90% of companies originally mandated to comply will no longer be required to do so after these adjustments.
The retreat signifies a crucial shift in the continuous and intense discussion about the board’s role. Established after the approval of
privacy laws enacted by legislators in 2018 and approved by voters in 2020,
The agency stands as the sole organization of its type within the United States.
The
Draft regulations have been under development for over three years.
However, they were reconsidered following several shifts within the organization over the past few months, which included the exit of two officials believed to be consumer advocates: Vinhcent Le, a board member who spearheaded the development of the AI regulations, and Ashkan Soltani, the agency’s executive director.
Groups dedicated to consumer rights are concerned that the recent changes indicate the agency is giving too much leeway to corporations, especially those in the technology sector.
The modifications ratified last week indicate that the agency’s proposed regulations will no longer cover behavioral advertising, a practice where ads target individuals using data gathered from their web activities and personal details. Under an earlier version of these guidelines, companies were required to perform risk evaluations before adopting or utilizing this form of advertising.
Companies such as Google, Meta, and TikTok along with their business partners employ behavioral advertising. This technique aims to
perpetuate inequality
, pose a
threat to national security
, and put
children at risk
.
The updated version of the proposed regulations removes the term “artificial intelligence” altogether and tightens the definition of “automated decision-making.” This change still necessitates evaluations of potential risks associated with handling personal data along with the protective measures implemented to address these concerns.
Proponents of stricter regulations argue that the limited scope of “automated decision-making” enables businesses and companies to circumvent these guidelines by asserting that their algorithmic tools merely provide recommendations rather than directly influencing decisions.
“My primary worry is that if we rely solely on industries to define what a practical risk assessment entails, they might end up setting the criteria by which their performance will be judged,” stated board member Brandie Nonnecke during the discussion.
“The CPPA has the responsibility to safeguard the data privacy of Californians, and diluting its proposed regulations to favor Big Tech doesn’t help meet this objective,” stated Sacha Haworth, executive director of Tech Oversight Project, an organization dedicated to contesting policies that bolster Big Tech’s influence. “Once these rules are released, what purpose will they have served?” she questioned in a statement provided to CalMatters.
The proposed regulations keep certain elements.
safeguards for employees and learners
In cases where a completely automated system makes decisions in fields like finance and lending, housing, and healthcare without involving humans in the approval process.
Companies and the groups representing them accounted for 90% of the feedback on the preliminary regulations prior to the agency conducting hearings statewide, according to Soltani during a meeting last year.
In April, after facing pressure from both business associations and lawmakers aiming to loosen the regulations, roughly 30 labor unions, along with digital rights and privacy organizations, penned a letter.
letter
collectively encouraging the agency to keep working on regulating AI and safeguarding consumers, students, and workers.
About a week afterward, Newsom stepped in,
dispatching an official correspondence to the agency
He acknowledged that critics were right about the rules exceeding the agency’s jurisdiction and backed a plan to rescind them.
Newsom referred to Proposition 24, the 2020 ballot initiative that led to the creation of the agency. “The agency has the ability to implement the rules mandated by Proposition 24 without overstepping its authority,” Governor Newsom stated in his writing.
Kara Williams, a law fellow at the advocacy organization Electronic Privacy Information Center, stated that the initial version of the proposed guidelines was strong. During a conference call before the voting took place, she further noted that “each subsequent revision has made them progressively weaker, which appears closely linked to the influence exerted by technology companies and their trade associations. This suggests that these regulatory measures offer diminishing protection to consumers.”
The public has until June 2 to comment on the alteration to draft rules. Companies must comply with automated decisionmaking rules by 2027.
Before voting to weaken its regulations the previous week, during the same meeting, the agency’s board backed four proposed bills in the California Legislature, including one that
safeguards the confidentiality of individuals linking computational devices to their brains.
and another that
forbids gathering location information without consent
.
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