New Privacy Act Effective January 1st, 2020

By: Team WTI | Date: December 27, 2019

Categories: Security,

Tags: California Consumer Privacy Act, CCPA, Privacy,

Are you a business that is located or operates in California? Are you aware of the new California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)? The CCPA goes into effect on January 1st, 2020 and could impact your business.

Companies that meet any one of the following criteria will need to comply with the CCPA:

• Annual gross revenues of at least $25 million
• Obtains personal information of at least 50,000 California residents, households, and/or devices per year
• At least 50% of your business’ annual revenue is generated from the sales of California residents’ personal information

If even only one of these descriptions matches your organization, you will need to be compliant with the act.

Make Your Site CCPA Compliant

Team WTI can help you make your site CCPA compliant. Here are the steps you will need to take:

• Updating your privacy policy with information on the following: how, why, and what personal information you collect and process.
• Updating your privacy policy with information on how your users can request access, change, or delete their personal data that you have collected.
• Introduce a method for verification of the identity of the person making the above requests.
• Introduce a “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link on your home page. This will allow your users to prohibit the selling of their personal data that you have collected.
• Obtain prior consent from minors (13-16 years old) before selling their personal data. For minors younger than 13, you will have to obtain prior consent from their parents or guardians.

Most sites today have a privacy policy, but you may need to update the wording to comply, along with adding a way for users to opt-out of their information being sold.

Penalties for Not Complying are Severe

This is something that you want to ignore. Non-compliance can put you at risk of facing large fines. The Attorney General will notify you of non-compliance, however, if you remain non-compliant after thirty days, they can initiate a civil case against you. The fine is up to $7500 per violation. That means per user, so if you violate the privacy of 1000 users, you will be fined $7,500,000. It is easy to see how this could get really bad, really quick. It is better to spend a little time and money to become compliant before there is a problem.

Contact Team WTI for any assistance you may need regarding this privacy act, and in making your site CCPA compliant for the new year.

(Thank you to Jeremiah, our Web Project Coordinator, for the information.)