Law360, New York (October 15, 2015, 3:45 PM EDT) -- On Oct. 8, 2015, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. This legislation, which takes effect on Jan. 1, 2016, has been heralded by privacy advocates and a number of technology companies as a welcome modernization of California privacy law. The California ECPA has broader privacy protections than the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which has been widely criticized for its failure to evenly protect various forms of electronic information from government intrusion and for using outdated concepts of electronic privacy. In contrast to the federal ECPA, the California ECPA requires a search warrant to compel production of or access to sensitive information like emails that have been stored on a server for more than 180 days, detailed location information generated by electronic devices, and sensitive metadata relating to user's electronic communications....