The intentions of the Act are to provide California residents with the right to:
Know what personal data is being collected about them.
Know whether their personal data is sold or disclosed and to whom.
Say no to the sale of personal data.
Access their personal data.
Request a business to delete any personal information about a consumer collected from that consumer.
Not be discriminated against for exercising their privacy rights.
Compliance
The CCPA applies to any business, including any for-profit entity that collects consumers' personal data, which does business in California, and satisfies at least one of the following thresholds:
Has annual gross revenues in excess of $25 million;
Buys, receives, or sells the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers or households; or
Earns more than half of its annual revenue from selling consumers' personal information.
Organizations are required to "implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices" in protecting consumer data.
“Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link on the home page of the website of the business, that will direct users to a web page enabling them, or someone they authorize, to opt out of the sale of the resident's personal information ).
Update privacy policies with newly required information, including a description of California residents' rights ).
Avoid requesting opt-in consent for 12 months after a California resident opts out ).
Sanctions and remedies
The following sanctions and remedies can be imposed:
Companies, activists, associations, and others can be authorized to exercise opt-out rights on behalf of California residents.
Companies that become victims of data theft or other data security breaches can be ordered in civil class action lawsuits to pay statutory damages between $100 to $750 per California resident and incident, or actual damages, whichever is greater, and any other relief a court deems proper, subject to an option of the California Attorney General's Office to prosecute the company instead of allowing civil suits to be brought against it.
A fine up to $7,500 for each intentional violation and $2,500 for each unintentional violation.
Privacy notices must be accessible and have alternative format access clearly called out.
Definition of personal data
CCPA defines personal information as information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked with a particular consumer or household such as a real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, social security number, driver's license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers. An additional caveat identifies, relates to, describes, or is capable of being associated with, a particular individual, including, but not limited to, their name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver's license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. It does not consider Publicly Available Information as personal. Key differences between CCPA and the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation include the scope and territorial reach of each, definitions related to protected information, levels of specificity, and an opt-out right for sales of personal information. CCPA differs in definition of personal information from GDPR as in some cases the CCPA only considers data that was provided by a consumer and excludes personal data that was purchased by, or acquired through third parties. The GDPR does not make that distinction and covers all personal data regardless of source. In the event of sensitive personal information, this does not apply if the information was manifestly made public by the data subject themselves, following the exception under Art.9. As such, the definition in GDPR is much broader than defined in the CCPA.
History
The CCPA was signed by Gov. Brown on June 28, 2018 and became effective on January 1, 2020. The act's effect was dependent upon the withdrawal of initiative 17-0039, the Consumer Right to Privacy Act. Five amendments were enacted and signed by Gov. Newsom on October 11, 2019. Notice of DOJ's proposed regulations was also published October 11 in the Z Register; the OAL had not yet filed the final regulations with the Secretary of State, as required for the regulations to become effective. The initiative, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, was proposed by Mary Stone Ross, Alastair Mactaggart, and Rick Arney. The DOJ approved the initiative's official language on December 18, 2017 allowing the proponents to begin collecting petition signatures.
