CCPA 2.0 May Be On the November Ballot

Written by: Charles R. Langhorne, IV, Esq.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) is not set to be enforced until at least July, but just last week the group that spearheaded the CCPA ballot initiative in 2018 has submitted 900,000 signatures to put a new initiative, the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) on the November 2020 ballot. Some are dubbing this initiative “CCPA 2.0.” In its current form, the CPRA would expand on CCPA and create:

• • Additional subcategories of personal information
  • Additional rights for both California residents and businesses related to personal information
  • Greater penalties for misuse of personal information of children
  • Creation of an enforcement agency
  • Creation of a fund to offset the costs associated with CCPA enforcement actions
  • Defer the employee and business-to-business (“B2B”) exception until 2023

 

This seems to be a logical next step, but it also seems to be very fast, as the CCPA has not even gone into enforcement.

The details are not yet finalized, but some of the high points include:

• • Creation of a “right to correct” similar to GDPR’s “right to rectify”
  • Tripling penalties for misuse of children’s personal information
  • Allowing businesses to collect certain personal information without the consumer’s consent

 

Why does this matter?

The California legislature has done nothing to extend the employee and B2B exceptions so the CPRA might be businesses only hope to extend the timeline on those exceptions. However, businesses need to be prepared for a no-pass scenario whereby businesses will need to implement CCPA-compliant measures for all personal information related to those exceptions by January 1, 2021. Depending on the size of the business, this could be a huge undertaking based on the number of employees and the number of vendors with whom they do business. These exceptions were greatly appreciated by businesses, but up to this point, the California legislature seems content to let the people decide in November or allow the exceptions to expire in 2021.