Lawmakers in Sacramento are moving to get ahead of a technology many Californians may not yet realize is already reshaping workplaces: devices that can read signals from the human brain.
As neural implants and sensor-based wearables become more common, privacy advocates warn that the tools could soon give employers unprecedented access to workers’ mental states — and potentially their private thoughts — without clear consent. Two bills now working their way through the Legislature aim to set boundaries before that becomes standard practice.
Neurotechnology relies on chips implanted in the brain or sensors built into wearable products such as earbuds, wristbands and augmented-reality headsets. The field has produced genuine medical breakthroughs, helping blind patients regain some vision, giving paralyzed people the ability to speak again, and allowing those with neurological conditions to work and communicate more easily.
But the same technology is increasingly finding its way into ordinary workplaces, where it’s currently used mostly to gauge whether an employee is focused or fatigued. Critics say that’s just the beginning. They worry that as the tools grow more sophisticated, employers could use them to flag signs of mental illness — information that could factor into hiring or firing decisions — or even to anticipate the words or images forming in someone’s mind, giving companies leverage in salary talks or efforts to squash union organizing.
Stephen Damianos, who leads the Neurorights Foundation and supports tighter oversight of neural data, said the stakes are high if lawmakers don’t act soon. Without guardrails, he said, “enormous new risks emerge,” and there’s an urgent need to establish rules “before it becomes the norm that brain data is accessed without consent or used to influence decisions.”
Two measures are now aimed at addressing those concerns. One, introduced by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan of Inglewood, would bar employers from collecting brain data outright. A second bill would broaden the state’s existing privacy law to prevent companies from selling neural data.
Bryan’s proposal, however, has drawn pushback from a coalition that includes major employers, local governments and trade groups representing hospitals, grocery stores and assisted living facilities. They argue the bill casts too wide a net and would interfere with tools already used to promote safe driving, catch theft and address inappropriate behavior toward customers.
The debate reflects a broader tension playing out nationally as neurotechnology moves from medical devices into consumer and workplace products faster than regulations can keep pace.
In other Sacramento news, California’s carbon storage rules remain unfinished nearly a year and a half after lawmakers required them, even as one of the state’s biggest oil companies has already begun pumping carbon dioxide underground.
California Resources Corp. has been injecting carbon into an underground storage site at its Elk Hills oil field in Kern County since May, part of a broader push by state officials to use carbon capture as a tool against climate change. The technique involves trapping emissions before they can escape into the atmosphere and burying them deep underground instead.
State lawmakers passed a law in 2022 directing the California Air Resources Board to draft safety and monitoring rules for these projects, including guidelines for how companies should track stored carbon and respond if problems arise. Those rules were supposed to be finalized by January 2025.
Nineteen months past that deadline, the state still hasn’t finished the job — even as carbon burial is already underway in rural Kern County. Air board officials attribute the delay to staffing shortages, though they note that some federal and county-level oversight exists in the interim.
The gap has raised concerns among environmental advocates who worry that a project of this scale and novelty is proceeding largely under an incomplete regulatory framework.
In staffing news, the reporting team is welcoming a new addition. Katherine Ortiz has joined as a technology reporter, focusing on how the industry affects everyday life for Californians — from the spread of autonomous vehicles and data centers to cybersecurity issues and the reach of tech lobbying in state politics.
Ortiz previously covered leadership, technology and innovation at Business Insider, where her reporting included an investigation into sonic booms from SpaceX rocket launches rattling homes near Vandenberg Space Force Base, along with coverage of major legal battles involving Google, Anthropic and OpenAI. Her byline has also appeared in the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, WitnessLA and LA Taco. A Central Coast resident, she holds degrees from Moorpark Community College, California Lutheran University and the University of Southern California.
Original source: CalMatters
