In an effort to extend the state’s privacy protections to people’s genetic material, California State Senator Alex Padilla D-Pacoima recently introduced the California Genetic Information Privacy Act.
Last year, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law another bill authored by Padilla that extended the state’s anti-discrimination laws to bar discrimination based on genetic information.
The bill introduced earlier this year, Senate Bill 1267, would prevent the secret collection and testing of a person’s genetic material. Specifically the law would bar collection of genetic material without a person’s written consent. The law would impose criminal and civil penalties for violations.
“SB 1267 would extend California privacy protections to a person’s genetic material and information,” said Senator Padilla. “We have laws to protect the privacy of our financial information, our medical records, and even the books we check out from the local library. We need genetic privacy protections because nothing is more personal than our DNA.”