California Assembly Bill 1844 of 2012

Access Granted for Social Media Users

Assembly member Campos authored this California bill that governs employment practices regarding the usage of social media. The bill adds Section 980 of the CA Labor code to define “social media” as various electronic resources ranging from emails to vlogs (video blogs). AB 1844 also protects current and prospective employees of an organization from having to provide usernames, passwords, or content of their social media outlets to their employers, and by this law, will not be released or threatened to be released from employment if they violate such requests of their employers. Senate Bill 1349, another recently-enacted law, carried by Senator Yee, has similar social media-related provisions to that of AB 1844, which pertain to UC and CSU post-secondary education systems. Governor Brown signed AB 1844 and SB 1349 on September 27, 2012.  Please contact us at 800-666-1917 if you have any questions regarding research on the above-mentioned legislation or any other California bills.