Lots of action for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the last few days! After much anticipation, on October 10^th, 2019, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (“the AG”) announced the Proposed Regulations for the CCPA.  The next day, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law six amendments to the CCPA. Below is a summary of key aspects of the AG’s Proposed Regulations and the Governor signed amendments.

AG Becerra’s Proposed Regulations

The CCPA requires the AG to adopt regulations to operationalize the CCPA and provide clarity and specificity to assist in the implementation of the law by July 1, 2020 (Civ. Code, § 1798.185, subd. (a)). The AG’s Proposed Regulations in particular provide compliance guidance for covered businesses, and procedures for facilitating consumer rights.

The AG’s Proposed Regulations are extensive and provide clarity on key issues including:

• Notice to consumers – the Proposed Regulations promote greater transparency to the public regarding how businesses collect, use, and share personal information and on what businesses must do to comply with the CCPA.

• Timing and recordkeeping – the Proposed Regulations encourage businesses to provide complete and timely responses to consumer requests.

• Methods for submitting requests to know and requests to delete – the Proposed Regulations set forth rules and procedures businesses must follow regarding how consumers are to submit these requests.

• Service providers – the Proposed Regulations harmonize different sections of the CCPA that have caused confusion regarding how the CCPA applies to service providers, addressing concerns raised during the AG’s preliminary public hearings.

• Discriminatory practices – the Proposed Regulations emphasize that a business may offer a different price or service if it is “reasonably related to the value of the consumer’s data”.

• Minors – the Proposed Regulations instruct businesses on the implementation process for a parent or guardian to opt-in to the sale of their information.

The AG will hold four public hearings (in Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Fresno) to provide all interested parties the opportunity to present statements or comments regarding the Proposed Regulations. This comes in addition to the seven public hearings the AG held prior to preparation of the Proposed Regulations. More information regarding the upcoming public hearings is available here. Interested parties may also submit written comments to the Office of the AG through December 8, 2019.

CCPA Amendments Signed into Law by Governor Newsom

After nearly a year-long legislative process, on October 11^th Governor Newsom signed six CCPA amendments into law. Here is a complete list of the recently signed amendments to the CCPA:

• AB 25 (Employee Personal Information Exemption): Excludes employee personal information from many of the CCPA’s requirements for a one-year period – during which the Legislature would consider more comprehensive employee privacy legislation.

• AB 874 – (Publicly Available Information Exemption): Removes a limitation on the “publicly available information” exception to the definition of personal information.

• AB 1355 – (Technical Corrections): Several noteworthy technical corrections and other changes including exemption of deidentified or aggregated consumer information, one-year exemption for B2B communications or transactions and a broadened exemption for businesses subject to the FCRA.

• AB 1146 – (Vehicle Information Exemption): Exempts particular types of vehicle information including warranty and recall information from certain CCPA requirements.

• AB 1564 – (Consumer Requests for Disclosure Methods): Provides alternatives to the requirement that covered businesses make available to consumers a toll-free number to submit requests for information regarding the use of their personal information.

• AB 1202 – (Data Broker Registration): Requires data brokers to register with the AG.

A more detailed summary of these CCPA amendments on the blog, is available here.

Conclusion

That’s all for now, but there are still more updates to come! As was the case with the CCPA amendments, the AG’s Proposed Regulations will likely undergo some modifications during the rulemaking process, before adoption in their final form by the July 1, 2020 deadline. We will continue to report on updates to the Proposed Regulations and other CCPA developments as they unfold.  And in case you missed it, we recently released our CCPA FAQs to assist covered businesses with their compliance efforts.