The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) officially makes the November ballot for the 2020 elections. After the Californians for Consumer Privacy advocate group filed a Writ of Mandate, it led to a hearing before the Sacramento Superior Court on Friday, June 19, 2020. Judge Change of the Sacramento Superior Court ruled in favor of the advocacy group to ensure the delay of verifying signatures would not stand in the way of CPRA.

Following the court order, Secretary of State Padilla had to direct the remaining counties to verify and report valid signatures by June 25, 2020, just in time for CPRA to meet the deadline.

Countdown of the Top 10 Ramifications of CPRA

10. Easier to read

• Clearer language
• Answers key questions about CCPA
• Clear new exemption for loyalty programs

9. Changes the threshold for small businesses

• 100,000 California consumers or $25M or 50% of your revenue from selling data
• Excludes devices from that count if not linked to a consumer
• Adds “sharing” as the third criteria for applicability if a business derives more than 50% of its revenue from selling or sharing data

8. Right to correct

• Similar to GDPR
• Potential liability to consider
• Additional ramifications to consider

7. Right to know

• Current timeline: 12-month look-back period – this can create issues as the delete request may include additional information
• Timeline changes – 12-month look-back or data collected after January 1, 2022, whichever has more data
• There are new potential exemptions for unstructured data
• New data minimization requirements

6. Stricter rules for minors

• Penalties are tripled
• Signals the importance of protecting a minor’s data

5. More details on breaches

• Consumers can seek statutory damages rather than having to allege specific harms
• Implementing security measures after a breach does not cure the breach
• Expands breach definition to include unauthorized access to online accounts

4. Behavioral Advertising

• Prohibits sharing of personal information for behavioral advertising
• Provides opt out of behavioral advertising
• Requirement to respect a browser preference even as a default – this matches the Attorney General’s latest operating guidelines

3. Sensitive Information

• Creation of a category for sensitive information and how to deal with it
• Consumer rights to restrict the use of sensitive information

2. Employment Data

• Extends the exemption for employment data to January 1, 2023
• As noted earlier, the timing of the November Ballot has significant ramifications for organizations as it CPRA doesn’t pass it would be challenging to develop a process with only five weeks’ notice during the holidays/end of year

1. Enforcement Agency

• Creates an enforcement agency
• Authority dedicated to enforcement, comparable to an EU’s Data Protection Agency
• Signals the importance of compliance
• An agency would undoubtedly provide much more guidance and information to businesses
• The agency would take over rule-making authority from the Attorney General

Only time will tell if the CPRA bill passes in the November election. As a best practice, businesses should consider devising a pass/no pass strategy to ensure they are prepared for the outcome of the election.

Join us as we speak about this update during our webinar with IAPP on July 1st, 2020, Register Now