It probably isn’t often that the world of privacy professionals is likened to a soap opera. However, if you really think about it, is the privacy world really all that far off from this genre of daytime television? The melodrama. The suspense. The evil twins!
Ok, forget that last one. But there has been some serious suspense and growing drama when it comes to the world of privacy regulations here in the States. And around the RadarFirst offices, you could say we’re following evolving privacy regulations as if they are a daytime soap and we’ve got nothing but time on weekday afternoons.
One of the leading characters in “the stories” these days is Alastair Mactaggart, real estate developer-turned-privacy champion who has become closely tied to the passage of the CCPA. Last month, Mactaggart in his new role as founder and chair of the Californians For Consumer Privacy, filed an initiative to qualify a new California initiative aimed at making a more stringent CCPA.
Adding to the suspense of this moment, Mactaggart did this the day before he was to take center stage at the IAPP’s Privacy. Security. Risk. conference and discuss the most recently passed amendments to the CCPA. The new initiative is called the “California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act of 2020,” (here’s a link to the full annotated pdf of the initiative) and it creates new rights and regulations around the sale of personal information. This initiative still needs to get the signatures in order to appear before voters. Meanwhile, the California Attorney General’s Office has stated plans to release a formal rulemaking for the CCPA in October – this month – and will accept public comment for a 45-day period. And of the new initiative? California Deputy Attorney General Stacey Schesser commented to the same IAPP Privacy. Security. Risk. audience – while onstage with Mactaggart – her office found out about the new initiative with the rest of the world, adding “we’re in a 3D chess game with Alastair to a certain extent.”
Now, if those exciting updates don’t leave you breathless, consider this: currently in our regulatory watchlists, there are 40+ active bills that, if passed, have the potential to impact breach notification obligations. A dozen or more bills have already gone into effect this year across the country in 2019, and another handful of legislation have been passed, but have yet to go into effect. Data breach notification laws are constantly changing, and keeping up is a challenge.
So what can you do? Like any good soap opera enthusiast, you can commit to never missing an episode, or else you could miss a major plot twist. In privacy terms, that means that staying on top of changing regulations is of critical importance. And that’s where I can offer a valuable free resource: Breach Law Radar.
The RADAR regulatory team continuously tracks new and evolving global data breach notification laws and regulations so that, if passed, any new requirement is incorporated into the RADAR platform for automated risk scoring to ensure compliance on the law’s first day of enforcement. Breach Law Radar is a research tool that provides overviews of global data breach notification laws. Access this free library of hundreds of global privacy laws, rules, and regulations to stay current on existing and proposed legislation.
