BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 1075 (Committee on Rules) - Uniform Electronic Legal Material
Act.
Amended: As Introduced Policy Vote: Judiciary 5-0,
Rules 5-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 7, 2012 Consultant: Jolie Onodera
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 1075 would enact the Uniform Electronic Legal
Material Act, which would provide for the authentication,
preservation, and security of electronic legal material, defined
as the California Constitution, California Codes and statutes,
by an official publisher. The bill would designate the
Legislative Counsel Bureau (LCB) as the official publisher for
purposes of the act and specifies the act would become operative
on July 1, 2015.
Fiscal Impact:
One-time costs of $135,000 to $165,000 (General Fund) for
set up, authentication, archiving, and onsite storage.
Annual ongoing costs in the range of $40,000 to $70,000
(General Fund) for dark storage, licensing renewals, and
auditing/sampling.
Unknown, future cost pressure for updating processes and
hardware/software to adapt to future revisions in electronic
data authentication and preservation standards.
Background: The LCB is required to provide public access to the
California Constitution, California Codes and statutes in
electronic form. Although this information is available at the
LCB-maintained website, currently there is no "official" online
version of the statutes or codes and no single state entity
serves as the digital clearinghouse for electronic records. The
Secretary of State is the custodian of all enacted Legislative
acts and resolutions, but does not maintain an official
electronic version of California's laws.
In 2011, the Uniform Law Commission drafted and approved the
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Uniform Electronic Legal Material Act (UELMA), and the National
Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recommended
that states adopt it. The UELMA addresses many of the concerns
posed by the publication of state primary legal material online.
The UELMA does not require specific technologies, leaving the
choice of technology for authentication and preservation up to
the states. The UELMA provides a technology-neutral,
outcomes-based approach to ensuring that online state legal
material deemed official will be preserved and will be
permanently available to the public in unaltered form. Colorado
became the first state to enact the UELMA on April 26, 2012.
Legislation to enact the UELMA has also been introduced this
year in Connecticut, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.
Proposed Law: This bill would enact the UELMA, which would
designate the LCB as the official publisher responsible for the
authentication, preservation, and security of specified legal
materials in electronic records that are designated as official.
Legal materials would be defined as the California Constitution,
California Codes and statutes, whether or not in effect.
Under the UELMA, the LCB serving as the official publisher of
these records would be required to do the following for
designated official electronic records:
Authenticate the record - provide a method for a user to
determine that the record received by the user from the LCB
is unaltered from the official record published by LCB.
Provide for the preservation and security of the record
- if legal material is preserved in an electronic record,
the LCB must ensure the integrity of the record, provide
for backup/disaster recovery of the record, and ensure the
continuing usability of the material. The preservation and
security of the record could also be in a form that is not
electronic.
Provide for ongoing public access - for legal material
in electronic records that must be preserved, the LCB must
ensure the material is reasonably available for use by the
public on a permanent basis.
In implementing the UELMA, the LCB would be required to consider
the standards and practices of other jurisdictions, the most
recent standards regarding authentication, preservation,
security, and public access to electronic records, as well as
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the needs of users and the views of governmental officials and
other interested persons. Finally, to the extent practicable,
the bill provides that LCB consider the use of methods and
technologies which are compatible with the methods used by other
official publishers in this state and in other states that have
adopted the UELMA.
The bill specifies the act shall become operative on July 1,
2015.
Staff Comments: In response to the passage of the UELMA, the
Office of Legislative Counsel (OLC) issued a white paper in
December 2011 providing a brief study and review of the relative
costs of authenticating primary legal materials in electronic
format. The paper reviewed five methods of electronic
authentication based on trustworthiness, file types, effort to
implement, and volume of documents to be authenticated. Various
solutions were described and relative costs compared.
Based on the identification of UELMA's legal requirements and
review of industry best practices for records retention, access,
and use, the LCB estimates costs will be incurred for both
set-up and ongoing maintenance. One-time start-up costs are
estimated at $135,000 (General Fund) for authentication,
archiving, auditing, storage, and staffing costs. Costs for
authentication and security would include the purchase of an
Entrust Certified Document Services (CDS) certificate, hardware
security modules, and custom software. Storage costs would
include $15,000 annually for offsite dark storage at one
location and $4,000 for onsite storage in order to provide
access to the documents. Tripling offsite dark storage to
multiple locations would increase first-year costs to $165,000
(General Fund).
Ongoing annual costs of $40,000 (General Fund) would include
offsite dark storage at one location, licensing renewal, and
auditing/sampling. Increased offsite dark storage would increase
ongoing costs to $70,000 per year.
Aside from $50,000 in staffing costs estimated for the
authentication and preservation process, LCB estimates the
workload associated with ongoing staff time to manage and
maintain the system will be absorbed into current processes.
With respect to adaptability, UELMA's approach allows states to
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remain flexible when opting for solutions to new technological
problems. As outcomes-based approaches anticipate that
publication technologies will change over time, future changes
may be required in the methods and technologies used to
authenticate, preserve, and secure electronic data. Any such
changes could result in unknown, future cost pressure associated
with updating processes and hardware/software to adapt to future
revisions in electronic data authentication and preservation
standards.