Signatures Submitted for Inclusion of New California Privacy Law on November Ballot

Californians for Consumer Privacy has announced that it has secured and submitted enough signatures to qualify its California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”) for inclusion on California’s November 2020 ballot.

Alistair Mactaggart, the architect behind the ballot initiative that led to the California legislature’s adoption of the CCPA, pushed forward with the CPRA to amend perceived issues and shortcomings in the CCPA. Among other things, the CPRA would

• Generally increase transparency and consumer control of personal data held by an entity subject to the law;
• Clarify definitions in the CCPA, such as “sale” and “sharing”;
• Provide clarification regarding loyalty, rewards, and discount programs;
• Increase the number of consumers/households whose data is collected, thereby exempting more businesses who do not meet the revenue threshold qualifier (i.e., exempt more small businesses);
• Add a new category of protected “sensitive personal information,” which would include an individual’s health, financial, and geolocation data, and provide additional protections for such information;
• Provide Californians with the right to correct inaccurate personal information held by a company subject to the act;
• Add and clarify private action liability for certain data breaches;
• Extend rights and requirements concerning children’s information and triple fines for violations of such rights/protections;
• Extend the employee and b2b enforcement delay to January 1, 2023; and
• Create a new “California Privacy Protection Agency” with rulemaking and enforcement authority (replacing the attorney general’s office for such functions).

According to Californians for Consumer Privacy, over 900,000 signatures have been collected and submitted. If California elections officials can confirm and certify at least 623,212 of those signatures as valid prior to June 25, 2020, the initiative will qualify for the November 2020 ballot. To do so, a random sampling will have to indicate that the number of valid signatures is likely widely in excess of the required number. If the sampling does not so indicate, deeper analysis would be required, making it less likely the June 25 deadline would be met, thus endangering the initiatives qualification for November’s ballot.

We will continue to monitor the status of the ballot initiative.