California AB 1709 Updates
Haven't been able to keep abreast of online bills lately due to irl things, but now caught up and have an update for those following the legislation.
AB 1709, California's law which intends to create a ban on social media account creation and usage for people under the age of 16, is now set to enter the California Senate Committee on Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection this coming Tuesday, June 22 (06/22/2026).
Linked here is a list of Senate members on the committee. Even if you're not in this member's district, I'd still encourage you to call as many of them as you can up to the day before the committee meeting in order to share your opposition to this bill. If you are in any of these Senate member's districts, I'd doubly encourage you to call, and follow it up with a written message to solidify your opposition to this and give full reasons why. You can find which CA senator is yours here.
This Committee's purpose is focused on digital and information technologies and systems and the consumer protection and security of personal information. So make sure your talking points focus on these in your messages. Your talking points can include any of the following:
Risks to free speech due to the required linking of personal ID or biometric data to social media usage. As well as censoring of speech due to people being unable to share information anonymously + danger to whistleblowers.
Risks of data breach which have been repeatedly occurred in systems made for identity and age verification.
Examples: The IDMerit data breach of the information of over 1 billion users in February 2026, the ID breach of French National Agency for Secure Titles which leaked over 14 million identities in March 2026, the Discord government ID leaks of 2 million users in October 2025 for age verification)
The lack of transparency in many verification systems on what information they retain and how long, as well as their security when it comes to protecting it.
The links that even OS level age verification can have to user activity, which essentially turns into a long paper trail of a person's online history which can be ripe data ready for purchase by larger tech companies.
I know this isn't a lot of time to work with and it's a stressful thing to consider a bill like this even has a chance of passing, but I hope that if you read this, even making one phone call and planting doubt into the minds of the politicians trying to push this through could be what it takes to help us put a stop to this horrific legislation.
Thank you for your time and efforts. Best of luck.
