On October 11, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the remaining amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) into law. The CCPA provides unprecedented privacy rights to California residents similar to those enjoyed by EU citizens since the implementation of GDPR. Most companies that do business with California will need to comply with the requirements of the new law. The deadline for compliance with CCPA is 1st January 2020 though some commentators believe that this deadline may be extended.
Other US states are already considering introducing privacy legislation reflecting the measures taken by California. However, events are moving quickly…
On 5th November two Californian Democrat Congresswomen, Anna G. Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren, introduced an Online Privacy Bill to the US House of Representatives. If successfully enacted the Act would create a federal Data Protection Agency (DPA) covering the whole of the US.
Corporate Data Privacy Obligations
The draft legislation imposes a raft of obligations on organisations, including:
- disclose why they need to collect and process data
- minimise employee and contractor access to personal data
- not disclose or sell personal information without explicit consent
- not use private communications such as email to target ads or for “other invasive purposes”
The legislation is attempting to tackle a range of abuse of privacy data. This is illustrated by the requirement for organisations to “notify the agency (the DPA) and users of breaches and data sharing abuses, e.g., Cambridge Analytica.”
Citizens Data Privacy Rights
The bill would give citizens the right to:
- access, correct, delete, and transfer data about them;
- request a human review of impactful automated decisions;
- opt-in consent for using data for machine learning / A.I. algorithms;
- be informed if a covered entity has collected your information; and to choose for how long their data can be kept
Sound familiar?
If you have any questions about data protection, please contact us via email team@datacompliant.co.uk or call 01787 277742.You can find more of our blogs here.
Gareth Evans, 15th November 2019