InfoBytes Blog
Buckley Special Alert: California governor signs significant data privacy bill into law
On June 28, California Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Consumer Privacy Act (the “Consumer Privacy Act” or the “Act”) into law. The Act was enacted largely in response to a more restrictive ballot initiative (“Ballot Initiative”) that appeared to have gained a sufficient number of signatures to appear on the November 2018 ballot in the state. Both the Act and the Ballot Initiative were a reaction to high-profile news stories involving large-scale consumer data collection and sharing by online companies, often done without notice to or consent from consumers.
The Ballot Initiative, driven and funded by a coalition of privacy advocates, proposed both expanding consumer privacy rights under existing state laws such as the California Online Privacy Protection Act and the “Shine the Light” law, and giving new consumer rights with regard to information sharing. The Ballot Initiative, which was withdrawn in response to the enactment of the Act, would have provided state residents with increased rights regarding the types of information online companies possess about them, the purposes for which the information is used, and the entities with which the information is shared. Consumers would also have been given the right to stop certain sharing of their personal information. Critics asserted that the Ballot Initiative was poorly crafted and would stifle innovation in data services. Last minute revisions to the language of the Act, which generally follows the requirements of the Ballot Initiative, sought to address some of these concerns and several industry groups that had opposed the Ballot Initiative did not lobby against the quick passage of the Act.
* * *
Click here to read the full special alert.
If you have questions about the act or other related issues, please visit our Privacy, Cyber Risk & Data Security practice page, or contact a Buckley attorney with whom you have worked in the past.