California Now Has the Nation’s Best Digital Privacy Law

California continued its long-standing tradition for forward-thinking privacy laws when Gov Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed a sweeping law protecting digital privacy rights. The landmark Electronic Communications Privacy Act bars any state law enforcement agency or other investigative entity from compelling a business to turn over any metadata or digital communications -- including e-mails, texts, documents stored in the cloud -- without a warrant. It also requires a warrant to track the location of electronic devices like mobile phones, or to search them.

The legislation, which easily passed the Legislature in Sept, is the most comprehensive in the country, says the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is a landmark win for digital privacy and all Californians,” said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil liberties policy director at the ACLU of California. “We hope this is a model for the rest of the nation in protecting our digital privacy rights.” Five other states have warrant protection for content, and nine others have warrant protection for GPS location tracking. But California is the first to enact a comprehensive law protecting location data, content, metadata and device searches.