The Washington state legislative session ends on Thursday March 12 and it’s been even more intense than usual. Right now the discussions around SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act regulating Flock and other ALPRs are the most intense. Sen. Trudeau’s original bill was a “compromise”, which advocates said was too weak to protect Washingtonians — especially immigrants. The Senate weakened it significantly before passing it; then the House made some relatively-minor improvements but also weakened it further in other significant ways before passing it.
TAKE ACTION! Sign the People’s Petition to WA House & Senate Democrats: ESSB 6002 needs *SIGNIFICANT* strengthening
Here’s how Rep. Brianna Thomas (the only Democrat who voted “no” during Thursday’s House floor vote) describes the current version:
Establishing any framework at this point for retention, access, and sharing is indeed a step forward.
That said, the bill doesn’t meet the scale of the harms that we are seeing.
Over time, that creates a detailed account of where people live, where they work, where the recreate, where attend houses of worship and seek medical care.
When systems operate at that scale, policy choice is about retention, about access and sharing become incredibly consequential.
What concerns me today is that the safeguards in this bill do not go far. enough to match the power of the technology that we are considering.
The result is that the result, is we risk normalizing operating as people, as Washingtonians, under a surveillance state.
And Madam Speaker, I know that you know, that I’m not really about being surveilled.
That’s not for me.
Yeah really. Very well said.
Up next, the Senate votes on whether to concur with or reject the House’s changes. This will probably happen on Monday, although it’s h ard to know for sure. If the Senate concurs with the House’s version, it goes to the Governor, who’s expected to sign it. If the Senate rejects the House’s version, then it goes to a conference committee — three legislators from each house. If the committee comes back with a version they think can pass both houses, there will be a dramatic last minute vote. And it all has to be done by Thursday, the last day of the session!
ESSB 6002 Driver Privacy Act (ALPRs/Flock/Axon…) Ask lawmakers not to concur, weakened bill won’t protect us & Thanks to Rep. Thomas!
TAKE ACTION! Ask lawmakers not to concur, and thanks to Rep. Thomas!
A quick roundup of other privacy and tech justice bills …
One very good piece of news is that all three of the age verification bills we opposed are dead, thanks to spirited opposition. Rep. Leavitt’s HB 2112 (based on Texas’ horrible anti-LGBTQ, privacy-invasive HB 1176), and Sen. Salomon’s SB 6111 (based on Mississippi’s even worse anti-LGBTQ, privacy-invasive HB 1126) didn’t even get a vote. The Attorney General Request bills HB 1834 / SB 5708 “addictive feeds” bill (based on California’s anti-LGBTQ, privacy-invasive SB 976, and subject of the multi-year Netchoice v. Paxton lawsuit) got further and at one point seemed likely to pass but things changed quickly and just an hour or so after hundreds of people showed up for Trans Advocacy Day they pulled the bill.
It was a somewhat surreal experience actually being on the same side of a bill as big tech lobbyists, and they probably helped swing a few votes, but 99.99% the credit belongs intersectional coalition of pro-LGBTQ+, pro-immigrant privacy advocates that mobilized quickly and fiercely. Let’s hope it’s a good learning experience and that in the future Washington Democrats work with LGBTQ+ communities before bringing legislation that targets them — and stop looking to anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from anti-LGBTQ+ states as a model.
On the other hand, we weren’t able to improve HB 2225 and SB 5984, Governor’s Request bills to regulate AI chat bots. They still give unscrupulous AI operators a green light to exploit seniors with manipulative engagement techniques. They still don’t include privacy protections, for children or for adults. Bummer. HB 2225 passed both houses, and the differences between the versions are relatively minor, so it too is likely to be on its way to the Governor — and then the courts, where the AGO has to spend a bunch of taxpayer money defending it against the inevitable lawsuits. WA People’s Privacy thinks it’s unconstitutional, and so do most of the other experts I talk to, and it’s really too bad they didn’t fix that, but oh well, it is what it is.
And a lot of promising bills we got didn’t make it
- Sen Nobles SB 5956, regulating AI school discipline and surveillance
- Rep. Fosse’s HB 2481 and Sen. Saldaña’s SB 6312, prohibiting surveillance pricing
- Rep. Ryu’s HB 2157, regulating High-risk AI Systems
- Rep. Shavers’ HB 2503, requiring disclosure of AI training datasets;
- Rep. Doglio’s HB 2515 and Sen. Shewmake’s SB 6171, regulating data centers;
- Rep. Kloba’s HB 2599, regulating AI in therapy
- Sen. Hansen’s SB 5906, the “Keep ICE Out of Schools” Act.
Most of these bills faced incredibly strong lobbying from big tech, and with unpaid tech justice grassroots advocates spread so thin there was only so much we could do to help. It’s not the first time my optimism going into a legislative session has been rudely dashed but it doesn’t get any less painful.
More positively, though, on several of these bills there’s already been discussions about working together to make progress in the interim. And three good bills that we also weren’t able to spend much time on wound up passing:
- HB 2303, Rep. Thomas’ bill to prevent non-consensual employee microchipping, has passed both houses and is now on the Governor’s desk. As Rep. Thomas said in the House floor debate, “don’t chip me bro!”
- So is SB 6081, Sen Pedersen’s bill to protect the privacy of sex designation information and historic sex designation changes in official government records.
- Rep. Shavers’ HB 1170, AI content labeling, has passed both houses and the differences between the versions are relatively minor, so it’ll probably be on its way to the Governor soon.
So even though it’s a far cry from the hopes at the beginning of the session, there are some rays of light — and a good base for further progress after the session.
Right now, though, the end of the session feels very far away. It might well be a loooong week. Stay tuned! And …
TAKE ACTION!
- Sign the People’s Petition to WA House & Senate Democrats: ESSB 6002 needs *SIGNIFICANT* strengthening
- Ask lawmakers not to concur and thanks to Rep. Thomas