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BFF-07
US-VOTE-INTERNET-CALIFORNIA
California voters expand data privacy law
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 5, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – California voters have backed an
initiative expanding a data privacy law criticized by rights watchdogs as
having worrying “loopholes” for firms such as Google and Facebook.
The initiative, which got 56 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s election,
builds on a state law by letting people limit how businesses use data such as
their location, race and religion.
It also lets regulators levy fines of up to $7,500 per violation of
children’s privacy rights and creates a state agency to enforce the law.
The California Consumer Privacy Act become law at the start of this year,
the toughest of its kind in the US.
Like the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), applied in the
European Union since May 2018, the California law guarantees rights regarding
control of online data.
Alastair Mactaggart, the wealthy San Francisco real estate developer behind
the original law and the act refining it, called its passage historic.
“We are at the beginning of a journey that will profoundly shape the fabric
of our society by redefining who is in control of our most personal
information and putting consumers back in charge of their own data,”
Mactaggart said.
California ACLU officials, however, opposed the initiative, contending it
would undermine privacy and increase the burden on people to protect
themselves from abuses of their data by big tech companies.
The ACLU of Northern California argued that the initiative was “full of
loopholes”.
Flaws in the initiative include “carve-outs written by the credit-reporting
industry and new ways to keep consumers in the dark about what companies are
doing with their personal information,” according to the ACLU.
The initiative limits businesses that have to comply with the law to only
companies that buy or sell data of at least 100,000 households a year, the
ACLU noted.
Critics point out that Facebook or Google could claim to be exempt
regarding online data they don’t pay for but is used to target advertising.
The change to the law also makes it easier for businesses to charge people
more if they refuse to let their data be used, according to critics.
Backers of the initiative contended that the laws will set the bar for
privacy rights in the US.
“I look forward to ushering in a new era of consumer privacy rights with
passage of the California Privacy Rights Act,” said Californians for Consumer
Privacy board chairman Andrew Yang.
BSS/AFP/RY/09:45hrs