Effective July 1, 2021, annual public disclosure requirements will start to apply to every business that is required to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), and which knows or should know that (alone or in combination) it buys, receives for the business’s commercial purposes, sells, or shares for commercial purposes the personal information of 10 million or more California residents in a calendar year. This requires these businesses to compile the following metrics for the previous calendar year (January 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020):
- The number of requests to know that the business received, complied with in whole or in part, and denied;
- The number of requests to delete that the business received, complied with in whole or in part, and denied;
- The number of requests to opt-out that the business received, complied with in whole or in part, and denied; and
- The median or mean number of days within which the business substantively responded to requests to know, requests to delete, and requests to opt-out.
This information must be disclosed in the business’s privacy policy or posted on its website and accessible from a link included in the privacy policy. The metrics must be updated annually by July 1. In the disclosure, a business may choose to disclose the number of requests that were denied in whole or in part because the request was not verifiable, was not made by a consumer, called for information exempt from disclosure, or was denied on other grounds.
To review, the CCPA, which became effective on January 1, 2020, grants California consumers the right to control the personal information that businesses collect about them. Through the CCPA, California residents have the right to know what personal information is being collected, whether their personal information was sold or disclosed (and to whom), and may request that businesses delete their personal information. Currently, only for-profit businesses that collect consumers’ personal information and meet one or more of these criteria must comply: (1) the business has an annual gross revenue in excess of $25 million; (2) the business collects, buys, receives, sells, or shares the personal information of 50,000 or more California-resident consumers, household, or devices; or (3) the business derives 50% or more of its annual revenue from selling consumers’ personal information. For more information about the rights afforded to California residents, and businesses’ obligations under the CCPA, see below for some of our previous CCPA blog posts.
Among other requirements, all businesses that are required to comply with the CCPA must maintain records of CCPA consumer requests and how the business responded to the requests for at least 24 months. These businesses are required to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices in maintaining these records. Such records may be maintained in a ticket or log format, provided that the ticket or log includes the date of request, nature of request, manner in which the request was made, the date of the business’s response, the nature of the response, and the basis for the denial of the request if the request is denied in whole or in part.
In addition, the businesses must establish, document, and comply with a training policy to ensure that all individuals responsible for handling consumer requests made under the CCPA or the business’s compliance with the CCPA are informed of all the requirements in these regulations and the CCPA.
Attorneys at Conkle, Kremer & Engel are staying current with the CCPA and to guide their clients through compliance with this sweeping data privacy law.
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