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Voters in California approved Proposition 24, which updates the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) just a few months after the landmark regulations implementing the privacy law went into effect.  As we have previously explained, the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) will change the existing CCPA requirements in a number of ways, including limiting the sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising and the use of “sensitive” personal information, as well as creating a new correction right.  It also establishes a new agency to enforce California privacy law.  The key provisions of the bill will not go into effect until January 1, 2023, providing much-needed time to clarify the details and for businesses to adjust their CCPA compliance approaches to account for the additional requirements.
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Continue Reading Californians Approve Ballot Initiative Modifying the California Consumer Privacy Act

On Monday, the California Attorney General (“AG”) proposed a third set of modifications to the recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) regulations.  Interested parties have until October 28 to file comments in response.

These proposed modifications are the latest effort in an extensive rulemaking process that has lasted more than a year.  Most recently, on August 14, the California Office of Administrative Law (“OAL”) formally approved the AG’s initial set of CCPA regulations, which went into effect immediately.  In approving the regulations, the OAL deleted five provisions that had been included in the version the AG submitted in June, but indicated that the AG could revise and resubmit those subsections for approval in the future.  The latest modifications are largely focused on reviving several of these last-minute removals. …
Continue Reading California Attorney General Releases New Proposed Modifications to California Consumer Privacy Act Regulations

Today, the California Senate Judiciary Committee will consider AB 1281, which would extend the California Consumer Privacy Act’s (CCPA) business-to-business and employment exemptions until January 1, 2022, in the event that the pending ballot initiative—which also would extend the exemptions—does not pass this November.

In addition, the Committee will consider two contact tracing measures, AB 660 (Levin) and AB 1782 (Chau).  Both bills could impact private employer and business contact tracing efforts:

  • AB 660 would prohibit use or disclosure of data collected for purposes of contact tracing for any other purposes. It generally would require deletion of such data within 60 days.
  • AB 1782 would require businesses that offer “technology-assisted contact tracing” to satisfy certain requirements, including providing individuals with the opportunity to revoke consent to collection of their personal information and rights to access, correct, and delete personal information. It also requires covered businesses to provide consumers certain disclosures, except where research or other exceptions apply, to delete personal information within 60 days from the time of collection, to maintain security safeguards, and to make available public reporting of the number of individuals whose information has been collected, amongst other content.

Finally, we also are watching SB 980, which passed out of the Senate on June 25, 2020 and is now under consideration by the Assembly.  SB 980 was scheduled for hearing before the Assembly’s Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee on July 28, although that hearing was postponed.  If enacted, the bill would impose certain additional privacy obligations on direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies that go beyond the CCPA, including requiring:…
Continue Reading California Legislature Advances Privacy Legislation

In a new post on the Covington Inside Tech Media Blog, our colleagues discuss how the pandemic is driving connected and automated vehicle (CAV) initiatives at the federal and state levels.  At the federal level, NHTSA and Congress have recently expressed support for utilizing CAV technology to address pandemic-related challenges.  In California, a privacy bill…

On May 5th, 2020, the California Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection held a hearing and considered AB 2811, a bill that would amend existing California law governing automatic renewals.  As currently drafted, AB 2811 would:

  • require businesses to provide 3-7 days’ notice explaining how to cancel an automatic renewal offer or continuous service offer if the consumer accepted (1) a free gift or trial that lasts for a predetermined period of time as part of an automatic renewal or continuous service offer, or (2) the consumer accepted an automatic renewal or continuous service offer at a discounted price, and the applicability of that price was limited to a predetermined amount of time; and
  • require businesses that permit consumers to accept automatic renewal or continuous service offers online to immediately terminate that service online.

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Continue Reading AB 2811: The Future of Automatic Renewals in California

 On May 4th, 2020, Californians for Consumer Privacy confirmed that they had submitted hundreds of thousands more signatures than required to qualify for a ballot initiative. It is still yet unknown whether the Attorney General will qualify the ballot for the November 2020 election, let alone whether it would pass. If the initiative passes, it will be noteworthy for a number of reasons.…
Continue Reading CCPA 2.0 And Where We Go From Here

On March 31st, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed into law SB 6280, a bill aimed at regulating state and local government agencies’ use of facial recognition services.  An overview of the law’s provisions can be found here.

Notably, Governor Inslee vetoed Section 10 of the bill, which aimed to establish a legislative…

On March 12, 2020, Washington’s state legislature passed SB 6280, a bill that will regulate state and local government agencies’ use of facial recognition services (“FRS’s”).  The bill aims to create a legal framework by which agencies may use FRS’s to the benefit of society (for example, by assisting agencies in locating missing or deceased persons), but prohibits uses that “threaten our democratic freedoms and put our civil liberties at risk.”…
Continue Reading Washington State Passes Bill Limiting Government Use of Facial Recognition

On March 21, 2020, the data security requirements of the New York SHIELD Act became effective.  The Act, which amends New York’s General Business Law, represents an expansion of New York’s existing cybersecurity and data breach notification laws.  Its two main impacts on businesses are:

  1. expanding data breach notification requirements under New York law; and

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Earlier this month, the Governor of Vermont signed into law S.B. 110, which will amend the state’s data breach notification law and create a new student privacy law focused on operators of educational technology services.  Notably, the amendments to the state’s data breach notification law will expand the categories of personally identifiable information (“PII”) that may trigger notification obligations to individuals and regulators in the event of a breach to include online account credentials, health and medical information, and biometric and genetic data, among others.  The student privacy law will place certain restrictions on how student data can be collected, used, and disclosed by operators of online educational technology services.  The new requirements, which will enter into force on July 1, 2020, are discussed in more detail below.…
Continue Reading Vermont Enacts Data Breach Notification and Student Privacy Legislation