The advocacy group, Californians For Consumer Privacy, has qualified the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) for the November 2020 ballot. The required number of signatures was verified by the California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla, on June 24th. The CPRA would amend the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to enhance business obligations and data privacy rights for Californians.

Recent polling has shown that California residents overwhelmingly support new measures that would allow consumers more control of their data. “Even as we’ve worked to strengthen privacy laws here in California, we’ve realized that our laws need to keep pace with the ever-changing landscape of constant corporate surveillance, information gathering and distribution,” Alastair Mactaggart, Founder of Californians for Consumer Privacy said in a press release. “We think Californians deserve to participate in and shape the conversation about how, when and with whom our most personal information is shared. That’s why we’ve introduced this new ballot measure, signed by nearly one million California voters.”

As we previously discussed in more detail here, the new data privacy initiative proposes multiple changes to the CCPA, including establishing a new authority to enforce the CCPA rather than the state attorney general’s office, which is currently tasked with enforcement. The CPRA also aims to create new rights, including the right to opt-out to the use of sensitive personal information for advertising and marketing, and tripling the CCPA’s applicable fines for collecting and selling children’s information. For additional insight into how the CPRA would amend the CCPA if passed, we have created a redline comparison between the CPRA and CCPA, which can be viewed here.