California consumer privacy law, online and off, now on the books

29 June 2018 by Steve Blum
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Californians will have control over the way their personal information is used by businesses, including online platforms. Probably. Governor Jerry Brown signed assembly bill 375 into law, after it was approved by the state senate and assembly in whirlwind fashion yesterday. According to the analysis prepared by staff for the assembly privacy and communications committee – which is chaired by the bill’s author, assemblyman Ed Chau (D – Monterey Park) – consumers will gain…

The right to know what [personal information (PI)] is being collected about them and whether their PI is being sold and to whom; the right to access their PI; the right to delete PI collected from them; the right to opt-out or opt-in to the sale of their PI, depending on age of the consumer; and the right to equal service and price, even if they exercise such right.

AB 375 was briefly in the spotlight last year, when it was turned into an online privacy bill, only to be killed by tech and telecoms lobbyists. Its demise behind closed doors prompted a successful petition drive to put a tough consumer privacy initiative on the November ballot. Which scared those same big tech and telecoms companies. For two reasons: they would have to spend millions of dollars trying to defeat it, and if enacted by the voters, the legislature wouldn’t be able to change it.

That gave Chau an opening to resurrect his bill, and cut a deal with the initiative’s backers. If the legislature passed a sufficiently stringent consumer privacy bill, the backers – who faced an equally expensive campaign – would declare victory and withdraw the ballot measure. Yesterday was the withdrawal deadline, the legislature met it and the initiative was formally pulled.

The new law takes effect 18 months from now, in January 2020. That’s forever in political terms, though. The legislature will have plenty of opportunity and lobbyists will offer plenty of cash encouragement to water down the new law. They’ll want to do it as quietly as possible. It’s worth watching, if only to make sure it’s as noisy as possible.