Assembly privacy committee advances bills on algorithmic price-fixing, workplace surveillance, insurer drone use and work‑zone speed enforcement

The California State Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee advanced a slate of bills on Monday addressing how technology is used in commerce, law enforcement and workplaces, voting to send multiple measures to the Appropriations Committee for further review.

The measures — which ranged from a bid to update antitrust law to cover algorithmic price‑fixing to proposals that would limit certain types of employer surveillance — reflect growing legislative attention to the intersection of consumer protection, privacy and novel technologies.

Why it matters: Committee members and witnesses framed the bills as attempts to protect consumers, workers and public safety amid rapid technological change. Supporters said existing law and practice has not kept pace with algorithmic tools that can coordinate behavior across markets or monitor people in real time; opponents warned the legislation as written could sweep too broadly and create operational or safety problems.

Algorithmic price‑fixing (AB 3 25) Assemblymember Aguiar‑Curry said AB 3 25 aims to update California’s antitrust law to address modern tools used to coordinate prices. "It doesn't matter if price fixing happens as a direct agreement between people or through artificial intelligence. Either way, it's wrong," she told the committee.

Supporters including Lee Heffner of the American Economic Liberties Project said courts and enforcers face difficulty proving collusion that occurs through software rather than in overt agreements, urging lawmakers to give courts clearer factors to infer an illegal agreement. "Just because it happens through code instead of conversation does not change the violation or the harm," Heffner said.

Opponents argued the bill as written could outlaw benign uses of shared commercial software (for example, revenue management tools used by rental housing owners) and could harm small businesses that rely on off‑the‑shelf tools. Whitney Propp of the California Apartment Association said the measure "would outlaw this even when no rules are being broken."

The author said major amendments include safe harbors for good faith software use and carving out end users who are not part of price‑setting schemes. The committee moved AB 3 25 forward to the Appropriations Committee.

Workplace surveillance and worker data (AB…