The newly signed California Electronic Communications Privacy Act is now the most comprehensive law that protects content, location data, metadata and mobile searches in the U.S. to date.
Based on the new act, California authorities will now have to obtain a warrant before they are allowed to access private electronic data. These include text messages, emails and GPS location which one gets from smartphones.
Moreover, authorities who are intending to deploy cell-site simulators otherwise known as Stingrays in order to find the exact location of cell phones nearby would also need to get a search warrant prior to deployment.
"Governor Brown just signed a law that says 'no' to warrantless government snooping in our digital information," said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of California, in a statement.
The bill has earned huge support at Silicon Valley and from privacy advocates which only shows how tech firms have antipathy to government collection of a private user's data following the surveillance revelations made by Edward Snowden. Some of these companies which supported the bill include Twitter, Facebook and Google.
"For too long, California's digital privacy laws have been stuck in the Dark Ages, leaving our personal emails, text messages, photos and smartphones increasingly vulnerable to warrantless searches," said Senator Mark Leno in a statement. "That era is over."
Sen. Leno (D-San Francisco) is one of the bill's sponsors. He is joined by Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) in the bill's sponsorship.
On the other hand, the bill received wide opposition from the state's sheriffs, prosecutors and police chiefs. Some of their concerns revolve on how the bill could potentially affect investigations on cases such as online predators and child pornography.
"It is an ill-thought-out piece of legislation that will have dire consequences for the men and women on the front lines of the fight to stop child exploitation and human trafficking," said the National Association to Protect Children in a statement.
Prior to the bill's signing, police agencies were given the right to tap service providers with the aim of gathering user information along with metadata from cell phone towers or servers without getting a warrant.
"We certainly hope that this bill is a clarion call [for the federal amendment]," said Ozer in an interview with Wired. "This is not only a comprehensive update for all Californians, but hopefully is a model for making sure that all Americans have this kind of digital privacy protection."
