There are several key aspects of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that people are largely missing to date. Here, learn why the "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" provision of the CCPA could be a game changer for many companies. And learn how you can get a head start implementing the processes and systems to comply with the provision without hobbling the business.

Original broadcast date: March 21, 2019 via IAPP Webconference

Updated March 2020

As we move deeper into 2020, we are starting to see an end to the uncertainty surrounding what the final version of the CCPA will look like, which is critical since the regulation is still slated to go into enforcement no later than July 2020.  We’re also starting to get a better idea of where the other 49 States might be headed with respect to their own Privacy Acts – seeing commonalities in the notice requirements and Individual Rights afforded individuals, but still a marked set of differences in the definitions of critical components of the regulations, including the how “personal information” and “sale” are defined.  Another major divergence is which States will limit penalties to fines issued by the State Attorney General or empower consumers with a Private Right of Action. 

Despite the emerging clarity, this is still very much a changing landscape, with State House and Senate Bills being proposed, rejected, sent to a task force, or passed on almost a weekly basis – so by no means has the approach to privacy in the United States been determined, let alone uniformly established.

Here, we bring some order to the chaos by analyzing passed and pending privacy regulations across the U.S. and ranking each state based on the relative strength of its privacy regulatory environment.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the most robust individual privacy rights frameworks enacted to date. The regulation contains 99 articles, but it is a handful of those that have upended the traditional privacy paradigm.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is one of the most robust individual privacy rights frameworks enacted to date. The regulation went into effect on May 25, 2018 and covers any organization that deals with the personal data of a European citizen. It not only defines privacy and how to evaluate whether an organization is properly protecting it, but also sets out consequences with substantial financial penalties for non-compliance.

It would be an understatement to say that data privacy regulations made a big impact in 2018 and 2019.

When it comes to privacy regulation enforcement it can be tricky to understand who is leading the charge.  Each regulation handles things individually.  Let's take a look at those who govern two key regulations: the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act).