1. United States
2. Calif.
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to support comprehensive privacy legislation that protects Californians from exploitative data practices by AI chatbot companies. A recent Stanford study examining six major U.S. AI companies reveals alarming privacy violations that demand immediate legislative action. The research analyzed privacy policies from Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. All six companies use user chat data by default to train their models, with some retaining information indefinitely. Human reviewers can examine chat transcripts, and the policies lack clarity about de-identification practices. For multiproduct companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon, user interactions are routinely merged with data from search queries, purchases, and social media engagement. These practices create cascading privacy effects with real consequences for constituents. When someone asks an AI chatbot for low-sugar or heart-friendly recipes, algorithms can classify them as health-vulnerable, triggering targeted medication ads and potentially sharing information with insurance companies. Lead researcher Jennifer King warns users should be absolutely worried about their privacy given these practices. Children face particular risks. Google announced it would train models on teenagers' data if they opt in. Anthropic claims not to allow users under 18 but requires no age verification. Microsoft collects data from children under 18. These practices raise serious consent issues since children cannot legally consent to data collection. The U.S. lacks federal privacy regulation, relying instead on a patchwork of state laws. California has led with the California Consumer Privacy Act, but we need stronger protections. I urge you to support legislation requiring affirmative opt-in for model training, filtering personal information from chat inputs by default, and enhanced protections for children's data. The Stanford researchers emphasize we must weigh potential AI capability gains against considerable consumer privacy losses and promote privacy-preserving innovation instead.