Tuesday, November 10, 2020

CA Passes Prop 24 to Enhance Consumer Data Privacy Laws

Last week, California voters passed Proposition 24, The Consumer Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), to strengthen California’s existing data privacy laws, which are already deemed to be the most comprehensive and consumer-protective of anywhere in the United States. More specifically, the CPRA will allow consumers to stop businesses from selling and sharing certain personal information, including race, religion, sexual orientation, and specific geographic location. It will also restrict how companies like Google and Facebook track users and gather data on them. Prop 24 could be a huge blow to these companies that rely on sharing user data with advertising partners to make money, and perhaps force these business models to evolve in order to be CPRA-compliant. Even though the CPRA will only technically apply in California, it is important to note that California’s rules may effectively apply across the US given California’s tremendous presence and influence in the tech industry. Other states have also been considering their own consumer privacy law enhancements.

While the CPRA will not become enforceable until 2023, it is important for companies that rely heavily on digital targeting to begin preparing over the next couple years: these companies should re-examine what constitutes “personal information” under the CPRA definition, understand which of their partners have access to what information, and familiarize themselves with penalties for CPRA violations that would not be violations in other states (more information on penalties to be released by California regulators).

Sources: https://www.businessinsider.com/prop-24-privacy-california-data-tracking-facebook-google-2020-11 , https://www.adweek.com/programmatic/what-media-industry-needs-to-know-californias-privacy-law-cpra/

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