02/09/2020
Technology & Regulation in the Spotlight

The California Legislature has passed a new bill, which extends California’s Consumers Privacy Act (“CCPA)” employee and business-to-business (“B2B”) data exemptions by one year to 1 January 2022. The bill is now subject to approval by California’s Governor.

In addition, a vote on another legislative initiative – the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA“), is currently pending. This act, if approved in November 2020, would lead to an additional extension of the exemptions until 1 January 2023.

Currently, personal information collected from employees and job applicants in the course of employment is exempt from most of the provisions of the CCPA. Personal information that is involved in B2B communications and transactions where the consumer acts on behalf of the company is exempt as well. The transactions and communications must solely relate to providing or receiving a product or service to or from another entity.

Notwithstanding the exemptions, data subjects whose data is collected in the context of employment must still be informed of it through a notice, before or at the point of collection. In addition, the right to opt-out of data sales and the anti-discrimination right still apply to personal information that is involved in B2B transactions and communications. In certain circumstances of security incidents, both types of data are also subject to the private right of action as provided by the CCPA.

Earlier last year we published our CCPA Compliance Playbook to assist in preparing for the CCPA and its recently approved regulations.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding the effect and implications of the CCPA, including the abovementioned exemptions and their limitations.

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Kind regards,

Ariel Yosefi, Partner

Co-Head | Technology & Regulation Department

Herzog Fox & Neeman