Recently we wrote about two amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) that were awaiting signature on Governor Newsom’s desk: AB 1281 – which extends the one-year exemptions for employee information and business to business information for another year until January 1, 2022; and AB 713 – which provides an exemption from the CCPA to medical information that is governed by the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or to protected health information that is collected by a covered entity or business associate governed by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the federal Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH). Both amendments were signed by the Governor.

While AB 1281 extends the exemptions for employee information and business to business information from the CCPA for another year, AB 713 actually broadens the CCPA exemption for medical information to include business associates. Section 1798.146 (a) now includes a business associate of a covered entity governed by HIPAA and HITECH, to the extent that the business associate maintains, uses, and discloses patient information.