Simultaneous Privacy Timelines Occurring in California

As advertisers and marketers continue to run the seemingly endless CCPA compliance race, the finish line just keeps being moved farther and farther away. Two simultaneous timelines have developed that directly impact the ability of companies to comply with CCPA in 2020 and beyond. 

On October 10 the California Attorney General’s Office issued their mandated CCPA rule. The regulations then entered a public comment period. The CA Attorney General’s office will hold public hearings on the rule on December 2 (Sacramento), December 3 (Los Angeles), December 4 (San Francisco), and December 5 (Fresno). Final public comments on the proposed regulations are due by 5:00 PM PST on December 6. ANA will testify and supply comments.

Following this public comment period, the California Attorney General has stated there will be a further 15 days short comment period to respond to any revisions in the rule. The finalized rulemaking will then be sent to the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL) where it will undergo a 30-day review. If approved by the OAL, the law will go into effect sometime soon after CCPA’s January 1, 2020 start date meaning that the California Attorney General will start enforcing the law on July 1, 2020.

Concurrently, the timeline for wealthy real estate investor Alastair Mactaggart’s proposed 2020 new ballot initiative has become clearer. Mactaggart has stated that he will continue to take public comments until November 8 and any amendments to the ballot initiative can be then amended through November 13. Any further changes would require a refiling. ANA spoke to Mr. Mactaggart about some of our privacy concerns but how he will respond is unclear.   

Mactaggart must then collect signatures to get his initiative on the 2020 ballot. Signature collection must be completed and processed by county election officials and then sent to the California Secretary of State by March 13, 2020. The California Secretary of State then continues the ballot verification process and on June 25, 2020 will announce whether the ballot initiative has qualified for the November 3 election.

All of these developments mean that companies will continue to be shooting at a rapidly moving target on how to comply with California’s privacy law for the foreseeable future, leading to constant uncertainty for the nearly half a million companies that are predicted to be covered by the CCPA on January 1, 2020.

We will continue to provide updates on this rapidly developing situation.