The California Legislature has returned from its summer recess and got right to work on the pending amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The Legislature has 30 days from today to send any amendments to the Governor’s desk for signature. 

As of the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing yesterday, a group of amendments were pulled from the agenda at the last minute and appear to be heading directly to the Senate floor for a vote without further changes.  Once voted out, these are likely to be crossing over to the Assembly for conference markup.  The six amendments are the following:

AB-25 carves out employee and certain business information from the definition of “consumer” and has been narrowed to include a notice requirement for employers.  It also sunsets on January 1, 2020, thus committing the Legislature and interested parties to take up more comprehensive employee privacy legislation in 2020.

AB-846 clarifies the non-discrimination provisions as they apply to customer loyalty programs.   AB-846 amends the CCPA to exclude loyalty programs from non-discrimination if the loyalty program offer is for a specific good or service whose functionality is “directly related to the collection, use, or sale of the consumer’s data.”   It also prohibits a business from “selling” (in the CCPA context) the personal information collected as part of the customer loyalty program.

AB-874 excludes information obtained from government records from the definition of “personal information” and it clarifies that de-identified or aggregate information is not “personal information.”

AB-1146 excludes the sharing of vehicle information or ownership information as between a new motor vehicle dealer and the OEM from the right to opt-out if that sharing is for warranty repair or recall purposes.

AB-1355 narrows the disclosure requirement to categories of third parties to which information is sold, rather than requiring such disclosure on a specific party-by-party basis and allows for differential treatment of a consumer reasonably related to the valute of the consumer’s information to the business.

AB-1564 adds an exception to the method of contact that permits “a business that operates exclusively online and has a direct relationship with a consumer from whom it collects personal information” to only provide an email address for submitting requests to exercise various CCPA rights.

One other amendment, AB-1281, which requires a business in California to disclose use of facial recognition technology in a clear and conspicuous physical sign at the entrance, appears to have stalled for now.