California Consumer Privacy Act: What Companies Need to Know

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) is a comprehensive privacy measure designed to target a broad range of information use across an extensive array of commercial activity. The CCPA continues California’s tradition as “first mover” in privacy laws.

For better or worse, the CCPA is the result of an unusually rushed process. California Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law within a week after the bill was introduced in the California State Legislature. The bill was a product of a proposed California ballot initiative spearheaded by a real-estate millionaire, a former Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) officer, and a financial-services industry professional. If the proposed initiative had passed in the general election on November 6, 2018, the resulting law could neither have been amended, modified, nor repealed except through another ballot initiative or by a 70 percent majority of the California State Legislature. Further, any modification of CCPA could only be to further its purpose within these narrow terms. As part of a compromise to withdraw the initiative, the California State Legislature passed the CCPA. As of this writing, the California State Legislature amended the CCPA in 2018 and again in 2019.

The complete article, "California Consumer Privacy Act: What Companies Need to Know," can be found in the Winter 2019-2020 issue of The Business Lawyer.