California Assembly Passes Voice Recognition Device Bill Headed to Senate(2021 #7)

The California Assembly recently passed AB-1262 updating an existing law to further limit the use of personal information collected through connected TVs and smart speaker devices. Specifically, the bill prohibits:

• Operating a voice recognition feature of a connected TV or smart speaker without informing the consumer of the feature during setup or installation;
• Using any recording or transcription collected through the feature that qualifies as personal information for any advertising purpose (unless deidentified);
• Sharing such recordings or transcriptions, unless deidentified, with a third party without the consumer’s affirmative written consent; and
• Retaining such non-deidentified recordings or transcriptions electronically without the consumer opting in to such retention during installation or otherwise in the device settings.