California SB 690 Enacted, Clipping Private CIPA Pen Register Claims
A California statute signed into law would end most private pen register and trap-and-trace litigation under CIPA, removing a recurring class-action and settlement channel for clients in telecom, adtech and platforms.
California has enacted SB 690, which according to a Perkins Coie client alert signals an end to private pen register and trap-and-trace claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act. Those CIPA provisions — written to govern government process — have been used by consumer plaintiffs in civil litigation alleging improper logging of call metadata and location data, producing volume filings, class actions, discovery disputes and settlement costs for communications, adtech and platform clients. Sophisticated privacy and litigation counsel should treat the development as materially favorable but not self-executing: the alert comes from a single firm and characterizes the statute's effect rather than setting out its operative language. The practical questions that will decide real exposure are the effective date, whether the change reaches conduct already sued, and whether private plaintiffs' standing has been narrowed or eliminated outright, since each determines whether pending cases survive or are dismissed and whether the statute reaches conduct outside California. Counsel should also assess knock-on effects: overlapping claims under California's consumer privacy statute may absorb the same allegations, and CIPA remains the basis for public-records and attorney-process theories. Watch the chaptered bill text, any retroactivity litigation, and whether other states follow.