Student Personal Information (AB 1159)

Record US-CA-15 · California Assembly Bill 1159 (2025-2026 Regular Session)

Issued by: California State Legislature; signed by Governor Gavin Newsom
Jurisdiction: California (US)
Level · region: Sub-national · North America
Country: United States
Published / adopted: 2026-09-10
Language: English
Official identifier: California Assembly Bill 1159 (2025-2026 Regular Session)

Summary

Student privacy law with rules on AI. It amends the K-12 Pupil Online Personal Information Protection Act and the Early Learning Personal Information Protection Act to bar education technology operators from using covered pupil information, including persistent unique identifiers, to train or develop AI systems unless the use serves school purposes and benefits the school and the teacher, pupil or parent. A new Higher Education Student Information Protection Act bars operators serving postsecondary students from targeted advertising, selling student data, using covered information to train or develop AI systems, and collecting sensitive data such as immigration status.

Safety topics

child safetyaccountability & liability

Scope

Borderline scope The extractor's scope_note is right: mainly a student privacy law, included for its rule on AI training.

Open question

scope_note contains research-process language (The extractor); move it to verification.note Issue #141

The record shows its last checked values until a maintainer decides; the decision is recorded in its history.

Status notes

Signed on 10 Sep 2026 in a 13-bill child online-safety package that also included SB 1119 (US-CA-08), SB 867 and SB 1276. The higher-education act is to operate from 1 Jul 2027. The law also widens 'covered information' (adding biometric or behavioural information, device identifiers, search activity, photographs and voice recordings), extends the K-12 and early-learning acts to entities acting for an operator, and creates a private right of action for specified violations.

Sources

Open the official source https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1159

Secondary source: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2026/09/10/governor-newsom-signs-the-strongest-child-safety-chatbot-and-social-media-laws-in-the-nation/

Local copy

Partial (secondary source only). The official source could not be downloaded (HTTP 403 Forbidden); only the secondary source was saved. The browser retry also failed (Browser could not load the page: Page.goto: Timeout 45000ms exceeded.). Last attempt 2026-10-17 23:06:35 UTC

Secondary source (third-party copy, not published) archive/US-CA-15/2026-10-17/secondary.html

Retrieved 2026-10-17 22:16:35 UTC

SHA-256 1bbcc7633567d216cc51f692f237ed855d4ba6b3221b9fc00aec45b3daee24a9

Verification

Another official source, such as an announcement by the issuer, confirms the title, date and status. checked 2026-10-18 · alternative-official-url-fetched

Recheck of 18 Oct 2026: the official bill page and text on leginfo.legislature.ca.gov could not be stored again (HTTP 403 on 16 and 17 Oct 2026; the browser retry timed out). Stored in this run: the Governor's release of 10 Sep 2026 (gov.ca.gov, the record's secondary source), which lists 'AB 1159 by Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) – Student personal information' among the bills signed that day, says the package 'regulates the use of K-12 pupil data in AI systems', and is the only stored source for the signature and its date; and the Senate Committee on Education agenda of 10 Jun 2026 (sedn.senate.ca.gov), whose analysis of the version of 16 Jan 2026 is the source for the summary and notes. Amendments made after that version cannot be seen. The chaptered text, the chapter number and the operative dates are not in a stored source. The status follows California's general rule that a non-urgency statute takes effect on 1 January after enactment, which is not in a stored source.

Second check: Independent check by Claude Code (claude-sonnet-5-5), 2026-10-18: 6 field(s) supported, fixes applied to scope_note.

History

2026-10-18verification.level: A → B — level computed from the evidence by tools/pipeline.py2026-10-18-recheck-north-america-2 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
2026-10-18scope_note: Mainly a student privacy law extending California's K-12 and early-learning prot → The extractor's scope_note is right: mainly a student privacy law, included for — pipeline run 2026-10-18-recheck-north-america-2 (recheck), candidate US-CA-152026-10-18-recheck-north-america-2 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
2026-10-14Added to the register — found in pipeline run 2026-10-14-discover-leads-2026-10-14, candidate C037 (US-CA/legislature)2026-10-14-discover-leads-2026-10-14 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)

Citation

California State Legislature; signed by Governor Gavin Newsom. Student Personal Information (AB 1159) [California Assembly Bill 1159 (2025-2026 Regular Session)]. 2026-09-10. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1159. Status: Adopted, not yet in force; verified 2026-10-18 (level B). Local copy archive/US-CA-15/2026-10-17/secondary.html retrieved 2026-10-17 22:16:35 UTC, SHA-256 1bbcc7633567d216cc51f692f237ed855d4ba6b3221b9fc00aec45b3daee24a9. Every AI Policy Ever, version 1.18 (snapshot 2026-10-18), record US-CA-15.

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