Legally protected health care activities

The law protects providers, patients, government workers, and certain businesses from assisting other states’ efforts to penalize legally protected care, regardless of where the patient is located.

What the law does ​

• Bars state and local law enforcement from arresting people for providing, supporting, obtaining, or aiding legally protected health care that is lawful in California, regardless of the patient’s location.
• Bars public agencies and employees from sharing information or cooperating with out-of-state or, where federal law allows, federal enforcement regarding that care.
• Prevents California courts and authorized attorneys from issuing certain out-of-state subpoenas tied to such care.
• Requires out-of-state legal demands for records to certify they are not tied to proceedings over legally protected health care, subject to specified patient-initiated civil claims.
• Extends record-protection requirements to California financial-services companies as well as communications and remote-computing companies.
• Lets the Attorney General seek injunctions and penalties, including $10,000 for a first violation and $15,000 for later violations, for prohibited cooperation or disclosures; false certifications carry a $15,000 civil penalty.
• Bars law enforcement from arresting a person whom the Governor has declined to surrender to another state.

Who it affects ​

• Patients and providers of reproductive, gender-affirming, and other legally protected health care lawful in California.
• State and local law-enforcement agencies, public agencies, employees, courts, and authorized attorneys.
• California communications, remote-computing, and financial-services companies receiving out-of-state demands for customer records.
• Out-of-state agencies, law-enforcement entities, and others seeking California assistance or records for proceedings over protected care.

Context ​

The law does not bar California investigations of criminal conduct, but restricts sharing a specific patient’s procedure information to enforce another state’s law on protected care.