SACRAMENTO (April 23, 2025) – Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach) presented Assembly Bill 392 and Assembly Bill 426 in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Both bills passed through the Committee with unanimous support and are continuing through the legislative process.
As online technology continues to evolve, safeguards must be put in place to protect citizens from exploitation by malicious actors. California is a leader in online privacy protection, so expanding those protections is necessary to create a safer digital environment and ensuring that Californians are no longer vulnerable to intrusive privacy violations is critically important.
Assembly Bill 392 received unanimous support in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. This bill would require that any individual uploading sexually explicit content to an adult media site provide a statement, under penalty of perjury, that every individual depicted in the content is at least 18 years of age and that they have provided their consent to have the content uploaded. It will also require sufficient information to ensure the uploader can be contacted in cases where they did not provide the necessary consent and age verifications. Finally, the bill would require that operators of adult media sites take steps to ensure that any sexually explicit content uploaded to the website does not include a non-consenting individual or minor and will create a mandatory 48 hour takedown window to remove non-consensual content.
This bill is a necessary step toward reining in the misuse and theft of an individual’s image and reputation. It is fundamentally a privacy rights issue, and AB 392 is crucial to strengthening the State’s existing online privacy laws.
“AB 392 is a response to the alarming rise in cases of unauthorized content of private citizens being uploaded to the internet. Once this content is uploaded, it is extremely difficult to remove. The safety of all Californians remains a top priority, and my bill will stop abuse from happening in the first place,” said Assemblymember Dixon. “I believe the unanimous support of this bill goes to show that this is a bipartisan issue and, more importantly, a bipartisan solution.”
Uldouz Wallace, bill sponsor and founder of Foundation Ra, is a survivor of the 2014 iCloud Hack/Leak in which her private images and videos were auctioned and leaked onto adult media sites without her consent.
“The fact that we even passed laws allowing this kind of abuse to be uploaded, while leaving it to parents of exploited children, and to women and men who were posted non-consensually, to try to get it removed is outrageous. And now with artificial intelligence and deep fakes, anyone can become the next victim. The PROTECT Act should have been passed years ago. This is long overdue, and it should never have come to this in the first place,” said Wallace. “As a survivor, I understood firsthand what was missing from our laws, and that’s why the PROTECT Act was created.”
Assemblymember Dixon and bill sponsor Uldouz Wallace have joined forces to enhance user safety and protect individuals’ privacy rights.
Additionally, Assembly Bill 426 passed through the Assembly Judiciary Committee on consent. This bill will create a civil penalty of up to $75,000 against an operator of any Unmanned Aircraft Systems or drones that interfere with wildfire suppression, law enforcement or emergency response operations unless the operator of the drone was granted a waiver to fly in restricted airspace from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Recently with the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, a drone crashed into a firefighting “Super Scooper” Plane. The collision left a hole in the wing of the aircraft, forcing it to ground for several days for repairs, thereby hindering crucial emergency response capabilities.
“Firefighting aircraft, including helicopters, air tankers carrying fire retardant, and aircraft designed to drop water all fly at a low altitude – the same altitude as drones, creating a risk of pilot distraction or collision,” said Assemblymember Dixon. “This bill is a necessary tool for emergency services to deter interference in wildfire suppression.”
Both these bills will next be heard in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.