Alastair Mactaggart made headlines in 2018 when he successfully submitted a ballot initiative to the California legislature that granted California residents data privacy rights over their personal information.  This initiative led to the creation and passage of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).  Just over a year later, on September 25, 2019, Mactaggart announced his new ballot initiative for the November 2020 ballot—the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act (CPREA) to amend the CCPA.  Motivating Mactaggart’s new initiative is his belief that amendments to the CCPA substantially weaken the law’s mission.  With the new ballot initiative, he aims to strengthen consumers’ privacy rights in order to counteract both the amendments and changes in technology.

The CPREA adds a number of rights and requirements to the CCPA, including:

  • The creation of the California Privacy Protection Agency, tasked with enforcing the CCPA and guiding both consumers and companies alike in an ever-changing digital world
  • New protections around sensitive personal information, such as health, financial, racial, ethnic, and geolocation data
  • Requiring transparency around the existence of and the logic behind automated decision-making and profiling in employment, housing, credit, education admission, and more
  • Disclosure of the use of personal information to influence political elections
  • Requiring that future amendments are in furtherance of the CCPA’s core mission

As the CPREA initiative is in its infancy, several things need to happen before it can become law.  The initiative’s September 25th submission to the California Attorney General began two timelines.  First, the public has thirty days from the submission date to comment on the initiative.  Second, Mactaggart has thirty-five days to amend the initiative. Upon finalizing the initiative’s text, Mactaggart must get over 600,000 signatures from registered California voters by April 2020.  If he manages to do so, the initiative will be placed on the November 2020 ballot for the citizens of California to vote on.  If the CPREA is placed on the ballot and obtains a majority of votes, it will be codified as law.

OneTrust is continuing to monitor the initiative and will update customers as we know more. For additional information, learn more about the initiative here and California’s ballot initiative process here.

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