All You Need to Know About CCPA Compliance

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), also known as the California consumer privacy law, was established in June 2018. The main aim of this law is to provide consumers with more control over their private data.

According to CCPA requirements, personal information includes data that can identify a particular person:

• Identification data like name, surname, alias, address, passport number;
• Web data like IP address, email address, search history;
• Commercial data like information about personal property, purchased products or services;
• Biometric data;
• Geolocation;
• Employment-related information;
• etc.

Having a business that gathers personal information, you should know about the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This law regulates human private rights across Europe.

GDPR has brought a lot of changes to the data protection laws. For instance, websites have to display the warning about the cookies files, data protection agreement, and more. Simply put, GDPR has changed the whole process of managing customers’ data for various industries (e.g. FinTech, Healthcare, E-Commerce, etc.)

It may seem that CCPA is California’s GDPR. However, there are several vital differences.

The primary differences between GDPR and CCPA lay in the area of defining personal data. EU General Data Protection Regulation covers more types of personal information, e.g. health-related data. However, the CCPA can be changed and improved in several years.

To comply with the CCPA, it’s better to take into account the following steps.

• Step 1. Determine if the California Consumer Privacy Act applies to your business.
• Step 2. Determine what kind of data is collected and why you need it.
• Step 3. Pay attention to the new consumer rights according to the California Consumer Privacy Act.
• Step 4. Update your website’s homepage.
• Step 5. Update the privacy policy.
• Step 6. Hire or engage a CCPA compliance assessor.

Before starting the update, you need to ensure that your business has to comply with the CCPA. Ensure that your company needs to collect data from California residents, your business type has to comply with the CCPA, and so on.

However, even if the CCPA doesn’t apply for your business, it’s better to follow its restrictions. It’s only a matter of time when similar laws are adopted. Additionally, the government of such states as Nevada, Texas, and New York are expected to follow with similar regulations.

CCPA or California Privacy Act provides a broad definition of personal information. However, you need to decide what type of data you need and why since users have a right to know the reasons for collecting their private data.

The integration of the CCPA compliance requirements has brought some new client rights that you need to follow. For instance, California residents have a right to restrict selling their personal data. We’ll discuss the new rights more precisely later.

According to the CCPA, consumers have to be notified that their personal data can be sold. Additionally, users can prohibit the selling of such information from your website. It’s better to introduce the link’ on the website with a title like ‘Do Not Sell My Personal Information.’

CCPA 2020 contains the list of precise requirements that you need to follow. You need to bring up to date your privacy policy. It’s necessary to add information about how, why, and what types of personal data you collect and use.

Users have to know they have the right to change or access the personal data collected.

If you aren’t a law expert, it’s better to cooperate with a professional who can ensure that your business complies with all the CCPA requirements. A CCPA advisor can estimate the data privacy, determine the gaps between your website and CA Consumer Privacy Act requirements, and offer solutions for eliminating issues.

Every business that collects and processes personal information has to consider the CCPA compliance. Additionally, not only companies located in California comply with this law but also firms that use personal data of California citizens.

The following businesses have to comply California Consumer Protection Act or California version of GDPR:

1. Businesses with annual revenue of more than $25 million.
2. Companies purchasing, selling or sharing the personal data of more than 50,000 clients, households, or devices.
3. Businesses getting at least 50% of annual revenue from selling personal data of consumers.

As a result, many industries are influenced by the CCPA (e.g. e-commerce, financial field, etc.)

The CCPA will go into effect on January 1, 2020. Any business that uses California personal data of consumers needs to prepare beforehand. It’s better to make sure that your business complies with these new laws.

New California data privacy law has introduced several new client rights. I’ve listed and explained them below.

California Consumer Privacy Act has introduced several new client rights for California residents.

As you can see, the CCPA can gradually affect your business. To meet all the legal requirements and consumer expectations, you need to spend time and resources to comply with the privacy regulations.

CCPA provides improvements to the data protection process. However, there are some more reasons to pay attention to this law.

CCPA is an essential law for personal data protection. Each company should pay attention to these regulations. Following the mentioned document, you can gain customer trust and provide them with control of their personal information.

Cleveroad already has an established framework for working with GDPR. And we are actively helping our clients to comply with CCPA.