SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect Jan. 1. It’s the result of Assembly Bill 375, which was approved by the legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown on June 28, 2018. The act gives consumers new privacy rights.
“Tech companies that do business in the state of California will have to make sure that they’re providing consumers with information about how their personal information is collected, used and sold,” said Ari Levenfeld, chief privacy officer with Quantcast.
Under the act, consumers have the right to notify business that they don't want their data to be sold, according to Levenfeld. Consumers can also ask for a copy of their data and request for it to be deleted.
Levenfeld said the time is right for such regulation.
"We’ve seen privacy laws in other parts of the world over the last couple of years, including a sweeping privacy law in Europe about a year and a half ago,” he said. “It’s great that California and then hopefully the entire United States will follow suit.”
The very existence of the law is a win for consumer privacy rights as it’s the first major check on a previously unregulated data collection industry, Levenfeld said. Still, it requires the active participation of consumers.
“Consumers should look at the websites they visit and try to get a better idea of how their personal information is used by those websites and who it’s shared with,” Levenfeld explained. “And if you’re not comfortable with how that information is shared, then you should take steps to take control of your personal information.”
Levenfeld admits that the CCPA falls short of recognizing that not all data is created equally.
“All data shouldn’t be regulated in the same way,” Levenfeld said. “Data falls on a spectrum of sensitivity, ranging from personally identifying information like your name or your email address to less sensitive pseudonyms or even anonymous information that can be used to guess who internet users are without identifying them directly.”
Some websites are currently greeting users with a prompt explaining their new rights. On other sites, finding the information requires more digging. Some websites have a button or a link saying something to the tune of “Do not sell my info.”
RELATED:
FOR NEWS IN YOUR COMMUNITY, DOWNLOAD THE ABC10 APP:
►Stay In the Know! Sign up now for ABC10's Daily Blend Newsletter
WATCH ALSO: Verify: Is that very steep bridge actually real?
A Facebook video of an alarmingly steep bridge has been viewed more than 5 million times.