California lawmaker pushing to narrow landmark digital privacy law is married to Ring surveillance doorbell executive

California's pioneering Consumer Privacy Act, which gives Californians new and robust digital privacy rights, is set to take effect Jan. 1, and the tech industry is lobbying to narrow its scope before it goes into force. California Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin (D) is behind legislation seeking to exempt certain types of "personal information" from the law, Politico reports, and she's also married to the chief operating officer of Ring, the home video surveillance doorbell company purchased by Amazon last year for $1 billion.

Ring, which has partnered with police forces across the country, has a definite stake in the Privacy Act, consumer privacy advocates say, and Irwin's prominent involvement in the efforts to push changes backed by the industry could pose a conflict of interest.

Irwin disputes this idea, telling Politico that she is trying to find "reasonable compromise" on the legislation that will make it a model for other states to follow, and her work in the Assembly "is independent of any job or role my husband may have." Irwin is a former mayor and co-chairs a national cybersecurity task force, and she told Politico her "education and professional background as a systems engineer provides me distinct qualifications in the Legislature to weigh in on matters related to technology." The suggestion that she is trying to help her husband's "smart" doorbell company is "a little bit offensive," Irwin added.

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Not everyone thinks Irwin's role is appropriate. "Look, if your spouse has a financial interest in a company and you are voting on or are proposing legislation that would affect that company, I think there is an enormously good argument to be made that it could be a conflict of interest under the Political Reform Act," Jessica Levinson, an ethics and campaign-finance expert at Loyola Law School, told Politico. Read more about the law and the efforts to shape it at Politico.