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AI Laws in San Jose, California
As of 2026-06-17, AI Laws USA tracks 70 AI rules that apply to people and businesses in San Jose, California: 10+ federal protections, 54 California state-level rules, and 6 local San Jose/county ordinances. Coverage is strongest on consumer protection, automated decision-making, AI disclosure and transparency, and consumer data privacy. 46 of these rules are already in effect. Each entry below links to its official source.
San Jose local AI rules (and Santa Clara County)
6 local AI rules specific to San Jose, California or Santa Clara County.
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In effect Limited protection
San José AI Policy
San Jose, CA · City of San José Policy Manual § 1.7.12; GenAI Guidelines (2023, as updated)
San José adopted a citywide AI policy and generative AI guidelines governing how city staff use AI tools. Employees must register AI uses with the city's Privacy and AI team, may not let AI make actionable decisions about residents (like approving applications), and must review AI outputs. San José also founded the GovAI Coalition, whose AI policy templates have been adopted by 100+ public agencies.
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In effect Limited protection
Santa Clara County CA Office of Education
San Jose, CA · Effective 2024-10-10 · Santa Clara County CA Office of Education — AI Guidance for Member Districts (2024-10-10)
County-office guidance to 31 member districts: AI tool vetting framework, model staff/student use policies, data-privacy addendum template for AI vendors, and shared educator PD on responsible AI use.
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In effect Limited protection
San Jose GenAI Guidelines
San Jose, CA · Effective 2023-06-12 · City of San Jose, Generative AI Guidelines (June 12, 2023)
San Jose published one of the first US city-government playbooks for generative AI, requiring staff to log every use of tools like ChatGPT, complete training, and refrain from entering confidential information.
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In effect Moderate protection
San Jose AI Reviews Board
San Jose, CA · Effective 2023-08-01 · City of San Jose, AI Reviews Board (2023)
City of San Jose established an internal AI Reviews Board to review AI tools used by city departments and helped launch the multi-city GovAI Coalition for shared AI procurement standards.
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In effect Moderate protection
SJPD FR Prohibition
San Jose, CA · Effective 2020-09-01 · SJPD Duty Manual, Facial Recognition Prohibition (2020)
San Jose Police Department prohibits use of facial recognition technology by department personnel, with no department-approved FR tool and a ban on third-party FR queries.
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In effect Moderate protection
Santa Clara County Surveillance Ordinance
Santa Clara County, CA · Enacted 2016-06-07 · Santa Clara County, Cal., Ordinance Code div. A40 (NS-300.897, 2016)
Santa Clara County passed the nation's first county-level surveillance oversight law in 2016. County departments must get Board of Supervisors approval, publish a surveillance use policy, and file an impact report before acquiring surveillance technology, plus annual reports afterward. Still actively administered by the County Privacy Office.
California-level AI rules most relevant to San Jose
54 California state rules apply to residents and businesses in San Jose. Showing the 8 most relevant to San Jose's local picture; 46 more are on the California jurisdiction page.
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In effect Stronger protection
CCPA/CPRA + ADMT Regulations
California · Effective 2026-01-01 · Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq.; Cal. Code Regs. tit. 11, div. 6
California's main privacy law gives consumers rights to know, delete, correct, and opt out of the sale or sharing of their personal information. New regulations finalized in 2025 add rights around automated decision-making technology (ADMT): businesses using ADMT for significant decisions (jobs, housing, credit, healthcare) must give pre-use notice, let people opt out, and provide access to how decisions were made.
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In effect Stronger protection
CA CPPA ADMT Regs
CA · Effective 2026-04-01 · 11 Cal. Code Regs. §§ 7200-7232
California's privacy agency finalized binding regulations governing automated decision-making and AI used to make significant decisions about Californians — including hiring, housing, education, healthcare, financial services, and ads to minors. Consumers gain rights to pre-use notice, opt-out, and access to information about how AI made the decision.
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In effect Moderate protection
CA AG Bonta AI legal advisory
CA · Effective 2025-01-13 · CA DOJ Legal Advisory (Jan. 13, 2025)
California's Attorney General issued a legal advisory making clear that existing California consumer-protection, civil-rights, and privacy laws fully apply to AI — including the False Advertising Law, Unfair Competition Law, CCPA, and FEHA. The advisory targets AI-washing, AI-driven discrimination, hallucination-driven misrepresentations, and AI scam impersonation.
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In effect Limited protection
CA Bar GenAI Guidance
CA · Effective 2023-11-16 · State Bar of California, COPRAC Practical Guidance (Nov. 16, 2023)
California lawyers using ChatGPT, CoPilot, or other generative AI tools must protect client confidentiality, verify AI-generated work, supervise AI outputs, disclose AI use where required, and avoid billing for time saved by AI. Misuse of generative AI is a discipline-eligible violation.
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Vetoed Unknown
CA SB 1047 (vetoed)
CA · Cal. SB 1047 (2023-24 Reg. Sess.) — vetoed Sept. 29, 2024
California SB 1047 would have required safety testing, kill-switches, and developer liability for frontier AI models trained above compute/cost thresholds. Governor Newsom vetoed it on September 29, 2024 — a landmark veto that reshaped the U.S. frontier-AI policy debate.
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In effect Moderate protection
CA AG Bonta
CA · Effective 2024-01-26 · CA AG Bonta — CCPA Investigative Sweep of Streaming Services (2024-01-26)
Sweep into streaming services' opt-out compliance; led to a $530K Sling TV settlement in 2025 and parallel CPPA actions (Honda $632,500) on ADMT-adjacent practices.
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In effect Moderate protection
CPPA Honda ADMT settlement
CA · Effective 2025-03-12 · CPPA, In re American Honda Motor Co. (Mar. 12, 2025)
California's privacy agency fined American Honda $632,500 — its first public enforcement action — for making consumers go through hoops to exercise opt-out and access rights, including against automated decision-making and data-broker sharing. The agency signaled that ADMT (automated decision-making technology) compliance is now a top enforcement priority for AI-driven consumer profiling.
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In effect Moderate protection
CA AB 1008 (CCPA + AI)
CA · Effective 2025-01-01 · Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140; AB 1008 (Stats. 2024, ch. 853)
California clarified that personal information remains protected by the CCPA even when it is embedded in or generated by AI systems — including model weights and AI-generated synthetic content about a person. Closes a loophole AI developers had used to argue training data and model outputs fell outside privacy law.
Federal AI rules that apply in San Jose, California
These federal protections apply everywhere in the United States, including San Jose, California. Showing the 10 strongest and most recent.
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In effect Stronger protection
Bartz v. Anthropic
N.D. Cal. · Effective 2025-09-05 · Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal.)
Authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic over its use of pirated-book datasets to train Claude. In June 2025 Judge William Alsup issued a split ruling: training on lawfully purchased books was fair use, but ingesting pirated copies from LibGen was not. In September 2025 Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion class settlement — the largest AI copyright recovery to date.
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In effect Stronger protection
Banner v. Tesla (Autopilot)
S.D. Fla. · Effective 2025-08-01 · Banner v. Tesla, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-21940 (S.D. Fla. Aug. 1, 2025)
A Florida federal jury found Tesla 33% liable in August 2025 for the 2019 death of Naibel Benavides Leon, in a crash involving Autopilot. The verdict awarded $243M (later reduced to ~$220M) — the first Autopilot wrongful-death verdict against Tesla.
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In effect Stronger protection
COPPA + 2025 Rule (childrens data)
United States · Effective 2025-06-23 · 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501–6506; 16 C.F.R. Part 312
COPPA requires online services aimed at children under 13 to get verifiable parental consent before collecting kids' personal data. The 2025 rule update — fully in effect since April 22, 2026 — adds biometric identifiers (like face templates and voiceprints, which matter for AI tools), requires separate parental consent before sharing children's data for targeted advertising, and tightens data retention limits.
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In effect Stronger protection
TAKE IT DOWN Act
United States · Effective 2025-05-19 · Pub. L. No. 119-12 (S. 146)
Makes it a federal crime to knowingly publish intimate images of someone without consent, including AI-generated deepfakes. Social media and similar platforms must give victims a way to request removal and must take the content (and known copies) down within 48 hours. The platform removal requirement became enforceable May 19, 2026, and the FTC has already begun enforcement.
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In effect Stronger protection
Thaler v. Perlmutter (Copyright)
D.C. Cir. · Effective 2025-03-18 · Thaler v. Perlmutter, 130 F.4th 1039 (D.C. Cir. 2025)
The companion copyright case: Stephen Thaler sought to register a copyright with 'Creativity Machine' (his AI) as the author. The D.C. Circuit affirmed in March 2025 that the Copyright Act's human-authorship requirement is constitutional and dispositive. AI cannot be a copyright author under U.S. law.
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In effect Stronger protection
Thomson Reuters v. Ross
D. Del. · Effective 2025-02-11 · Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. Ross Intelligence, Inc., 694 F. Supp. 3d 467 (D. Del. 2025)
Thomson Reuters sued legal-research startup Ross Intelligence in 2020 for copying Westlaw headnotes to train a competing AI legal-research tool. In February 2025, Judge Stephanos Bibas (sitting by designation) granted summary judgment to Thomson Reuters on direct copyright infringement and rejected Ross's fair-use defense — the first definitive U.S. ruling on AI-training fair use. The 2023 jury trial verdict had been deadlocked; the 2025 ruling resolved liability.
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In effect Stronger protection
Louis v. SafeRent
D. Mass. · Effective 2024-11-20 · Louis v. SafeRent Solutions, LLC, No. 1:22-cv-10800 (D. Mass.)
SafeRent agreed in November 2024 to a $2.275M settlement and a five-year ban on using its 'SafeRent Score' for housing-voucher applicants, after a class action alleged its AI tenant-screening tool systematically denied housing to Black and Hispanic Section 8 voucher holders. The first major AI tenant-screening Fair Housing Act settlement.
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In effect Stronger protection
NetChoice v. Yost (Ohio)
S.D. Ohio · Effective 2024-04-30 · NetChoice, LLC v. Yost, No. 2:24-cv-00047 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 30, 2024)
Ohio's Social Media Parental Notification Act — requiring parental consent for minors' social-media use, including algorithmic feeds — was permanently enjoined as unconstitutional in April 2024.
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In effect Stronger protection
FTC Impersonation Rule (AI)
United States · Effective 2024-04-01 · 16 C.F.R. Part 461; 89 Fed. Reg. 15017
The FTC's Impersonation Rule lets the agency directly sue scammers who pretend to be a government agency or a real business — including those who use AI-cloned voices or generated images to do so. Civil penalties can reach $53,088 per violation. The FTC also issued a supplemental notice in February 2024 proposing to extend the rule to all individual impersonation.
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In effect Stronger protection
TCPA (AI voice calls)
United States · Effective 2024-02-08 · 47 U.S.C. § 227; FCC 24-17
Robocalls using AI-cloned or AI-generated voices are treated like other 'artificial voice' calls: callers need your prior express consent, must identify themselves, and must offer opt-outs for telemarketing. You can personally sue violators for $500 to $1,500 per illegal call.
Frequently asked questions about AI laws in San Jose, California
Are there AI laws in San Jose, California?
What federal AI rules apply in San Jose?
Does California have an AI privacy law?
Are deepfakes illegal in California?
Can my employer use AI to screen me for jobs in San Jose?
How do I report an AI law violation in San Jose?
Are facial recognition cameras allowed in San Jose?
Is San Jose regulated by California's consumer privacy act?
Have we missed an AI rule in San Jose?
This page is generated from our open civic dataset. If you know of a San Jose ordinance, county rule, or local enforcement action we should add, email [email protected] or submit a correction. Every entry must include a verifiable source.