The US privacy law landscape continues to shift and evolve as state and federal privacy legislative proposals continue to be debated and become enacted.

While CCPA-like bills in Washington and Texas failed to pass, Nevada passed its online privacy amendment and proposals in New York and Washington, DC appear to be gaining momentum.

This is the Data Protection Report’s ninth blog post in a series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA. Stay tuned for additional posts on the CCPA.

On May 16, 2019, the California Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing that included S.B. 561, the “Attorney General amendment” to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). The bill is being held in committee and under submission, which means the bill has been blocked and is likely dead.

This is the Data Protection Report’s eighth blog post in series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA. Stay tuned for additional posts on the CCPA.

With significant enforcement activity and new laws being enacted or proposed since the start of the year, regulators in the EU and the US, several US states, and the US Congress are showing they mean business in terms of data privacy.

To help companies best protect consumer data and remediate enforcement risks, we provide below an overview of the following:

  1. two noteworthy recent EU and US regulator enforcement actions;
  2. changes in the US state data privacy law landscape, including the proposal from the California Attorney General’s Office to expand enforcement authority and class action litigation under the California Consumer Privacy Act; and
  3. US Congress’ consideration of a first-ever comprehensive US federal privacy law.

This is the Data Protection Report’s sixth post in a series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA. Stay tuned for additional CCPA posts.

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), California’s new privacy law which takes effect on January 1, 2020, requires the Attorney General to adopt implementing regulations that further the objectives of the CCPA. Much concern has been raised about the law as currently written, including by Attorney General Xavier Becerra himself. With regulations set to be issued on or before July 1, 2020, the Attorney General’s Office will host six public forums to give key stakeholders an opportunity to provide feedback on the law and help shape the implementing regulations.

This is the Data Protection Report’s fourth blog posts in a series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA, which will culminate in a webinar on the CCPA in October. Stay tuned for additional blogs and information about our upcoming webinar on the CCPA.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (the “CCPA” or “Act”) includes significant and new disclosure requirements for businesses that collect and or sell or disclose California residents’ personal information. Below we have outlined: (1) disclosures businesses must make in their privacy policy; (2) disclosures businesses must make upon receipt of a “verifiable consumer request”; and (3) Norton Rose Fulbright’s takeaways.

Privacy policy disclosures

Upon the CCPA taking effect, a business’s privacy policy must affirmatively inform consumers of the categories of personal information collected about the consumer, the sources from which that information is collected, the commercial or business purpose for which the personal information is  collected, the categories of third parties the information will be shared with, and specific pieces of personal information collected about the consumer.  In addition, businesses must provide consumers with a description of their rights. Businesses should be cognizant that the Act specifically prohibits businesses from collecting additional categories of personal information and then using those new categories for purposes other than as disclosed.

This is the Data Protection Report’s third blog post in a series of CCPA blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA which will culminate in a webinar on the CCPA in October. This blog focuses on the CCPA’s broad definition of Personal Information. Stay tuned for additional blogs and information about our upcoming webinar on the CCPA.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA” or the “Act”) sets a new precedent with its sweeping definition of  Personal Information (“PI”).   The CCPA defines “[p]ersonal information” as any information that “identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household.”

This is the Data Protection Report’s second post in a series of blog posts that will break down the major elements of the CCPA which will culminate in a webinar on the CCPA in October. This blog focuses on covered entities. Stay tuned for additional posts and information about our upcoming webinar on the CCPA.

California’s new privacy law, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants California residents extensive new privacy rights. One of the more significant aspects of the law however, is the number of business entities to which it applies. Companies around the world must comply with the CCPA if they do business in California, collect consumers’ personal information, and determine the purposes and means of processing that information. Companies must also meet one of three criteria: (a) have annual gross revenue in excess of $25 million; (b) buy, receive, or sell personal information of at least 50,000 California consumers, households, or devices; or (c) derive at least 50% of its annual revenue from selling California consumers’ personal information. Consumer is defined as a natural person who is a California resident. The new rules may also apply to parent companies and subsidiaries that share common branding with the business.

On July 5, the European Parliament passed a non-binding resolution, asking the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, to suspend the Privacy Shield framework. The EU-US Privacy Shield, designed by the US Department of Commerce and the European Commission, provides a mechanism for companies to transfer personal data between the EU and the US while remaining compliant with EU data protection laws.

The European Commission passed the data-sharing privacy framework on July 12, 2016, after its precursor, Safe Harbor, was struck down by the European Court of Justice on October 6, 2015.

Since the European Parliament’s resolution is non-binding, the European Commission could choose to ignore it.  However, the Commission will no doubt take the Parliament members’ concerns into consideration in its annual review of the Shield which is due in September.

Further discussions on whether to renegotiate the Privacy Shield is also on the table since the Shield is based on the now defunct EU directive 95/46, which the European Union General Data Protection Regulation replaced when it went into effect on May 25, 2018.