California Privacy Rights Act

On January 28, 2021, privacy professionals around the world will celebrate Data Privacy Day. This year, we decided to mark the occasion by gathering our team’s thoughts and expectations on what we expect to be the biggest privacy law stories in 2021 and beyond.

Last year we wrote a similar article, attempting to predict how the privacy landscape would unfold in 2020. We got some things right (e.g., the emergence of CCPA 2.0). But, let’s be honest, in March everything changed, including privacy law. As spring turned into summer our writing focused on the privacy law implications of COVID-19, including contact tracing, no contact temperature taking, and the unanticipated collection of heath information, among other unexpected topics. We also took note of developments overseas, including the Court of Justice of the European Union’s Schrems II decision and the emergence of Brazil’s federal privacy law, LGPD.

If there was one takeaway from 2020 from a privacy law perspective it was this – while it is impossible to predict its path, privacy law is rapidly growing and evolving, almost on a daily basis, and in nearly every corner of the world. With that, we turn to our 2021 predictions.

Keypoint: Although the CPRA will not become fully operative until January 1, 2023, the provisions creating the California Privacy Protection Agency and extending the business-to-business and employee exemptions are now operative.

On December 11, 2020, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla certified the results of the November General Election. As a result, the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) became effective today, pursuant to Section 31 of Proposition 24 and Article II, Section 10(a) of the California Constitution. Notwithstanding the CPRA’s effective date, the majority of its provisions will not become operative until January 1, 2023. Nonetheless, certain notable provisions are now fully operative:

According to the San Francisco Chronicle and Californians for Consumer Privacy, California voters have passed Proposition 24 – the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). The CPRA substantially modifies the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which just went into effect on January 1, 2020.

Members of Husch Blackwell’s privacy and data security practice will host…

On June 24, 2020, the California Secretary of State announced that county election officials had validated enough signatures through the random signature validation process to make the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (a/k/a CCPA 2.0) eligible for the November 3, 2020 ballot. The final projected valid signatures based on the random sample validation process…

Keypoint: If the California Privacy Rights Act is approved by voters in November, it would trigger a series of deadlines ultimately culminating in a January 1, 2023 effective date and July 1, 2023 enforcement date.

On May 4, 2020, privacy advocates reported that they were submitting over 900,000 signatures to qualify the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA or CCPA.20) for the November election. Assuming the initiative passes the signature verification process, it would be on the November 3, 2020 ballot and become law if approved by a simple majority of California voters.

If the CPRA does pass in November, it will trigger a complicated timeline of staggered effective and enforcement dates and regulatory rulemaking deadlines.