EdLaw
AB 1405 (2026) — AI auditors: registration
Enacted, not yet in effect. AB 1405 (Stats. 2026, ch. 178), approved by the Governor on 9 September 2026, adds Chapter 5.9.5 (§11549.80 et seq.) to the Government Code: an AI Auditor Registry run by the Government Operations Agency, registration of AI auditors, standards of independence for registered auditors, and, "Beginning January 1, 2029", a bar on offering, selling or conducting a covered AI audit unregistered (§11549.82.5). It has no general effective-date clause, so it takes effect on 1 January 2027 under Cal. Const. art. IV, §8(c)(1): "a statute enacted at a regular session shall go into effect on January 1 next following a 90-day period from the date of enactment of the statute".
Applicability to EdTech
The act binds auditors, not the products audited, but it decides which audit regime other statutes use. A "Covered AI audit" is "an audit conducted to assess internal controls, processes, or systems implemented for an AI system or model that are necessary for compliance with state law" (§11549.80(d)), so from 2029 the independent audits required of companion chatbot operators under Adam's Law must be conducted by a registered auditor. Its chaptering also decides which of the two printed versions of Adam's Law's audit section becomes operative: §21814(g) applies only if this act is not chaptered and in effect by 1 January 2027, the second version only if it is.
Key obligations at a glance
- Registry by 1 January 2029; registration numbers and public listing from that date — §11549.82.
- Registration required for covered AI audits from 1 January 2029 — §11549.82.5.
- Registration information and auditor standards — §11549.83.
Enforcement
By the Government Operations Agency under the chapter — see AB-1405.md from §11549.84.
Contents
| Document | Covers |
|---|---|
| AB-1405.md | The chaptered bill in full: Legislative Counsel's Digest and Gov. Code Chapter 5.9.5 |
Licence
The corpus reproduces the chaptered text of AB 1405 and the Legislative Counsel's Digest verbatim from the California Legislature's own database. Statute text enacted by a state legislature is outside copyright under the government edicts doctrine. In Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 590 U.S. 255 (2020) (slip opinion, read 2026-10-01), the Supreme Court held: "Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties." The Legislature's XML carries the comment "Copyright © Legislative Counsel Bureau, State of California."; the Bureau is the Legislature's own drafting office, and the same opinion holds that "Because Georgia’s annotations are authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties, the government edicts doctrine puts them outside the reach of copyright protection." The bulk-export readme (pubinfo_Readme.pdf, read 2026-10-13) states no copyright notice or terms of use.
Conditions: none attach. The corpus names the official source in Sources and in each section's {.meta} provenance line, and Meta describes what it changed (anchors added, nothing reworded).
Related
- Adam's Law (SB 1119) — its child safety audits are covered AI audits