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2026 Washington state legislature: testimony and followon mail

Life comes at you fast ... and the leg session comes at you even faster, especially in even-numbered years when it's a 60-day short session. So I didn't get the overview post up until halfway through the session, and didn't have time to do the two followon posts I planned. Oh well. But I did testify in a bunch of hearings, and sent detailed followon mail. So here are the links.

The Driver Privacy Act, regulating Flock and other ALPRs (SB 6002/HB 2332)

It was clear from the beginning of the session that this bill would almost certainly pass. A coalition of tech justice, LGBTQIA2S+, reproductive rights, privacy, and civil liberties advocates were pushing to strengthen the original "compromise"; law enforcement and ALPR vendors were trying to get it to be as weak as possible. The version that eventually passed was significantly weaker than the original "compromise" – a very disappointing result – although does improve on the status quo in some important ways.

Age verification

Our goal here was to kill the bills – and we did.

"AI"

Amy Sundberg's Washington Legislature Grapples with Slew of Bills Regulating AI has a roundup of most of these. None wound up passing. I was especially enthusiastic about SB 5956 (which made it to the Senate but didn't get a House vote) and HB 2481 (which died in Appropriations). On HB 2599, I had a feeling that it wouldn't go very far, but the bill sponsor had asked me to testify, and I wanted to lay the groundwork for progress in the interim.

AI Companion Chatbots

This was a "Governor's Request" bill, so almost certain to pass. The reason I originally got involved was out of concern that it would be amended to include some age verification requirements ... fortunately, that didn't happen. In the process though I realized that there the bill as written actually explicitly allowed AI companion chatbot makers to use manipulative engagement techniques on seniors and other adults – and also didn't include any privacy protections. Those seemed like good things to fix, so that's what I focused on in my testimony!

Alas even though several experts in the harms caused by AI chatbots also advocated for one of the improvements, that also didn't happen; amendments to the original bill were relatively minor. Oh well. It's a wasted opportunity at best, and quite possibly something that other states will use as a template (especially since California's upcoming initiative, funded by OpenAI, has similar language). Then again it's probably unconstitutional anyhow (which would have been another good thing to fix) so hard to know how much it matters.