Alastair Mactaggart, the real estate developer who led the push for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), is at it again. Mactaggart and his organization, Californians for Consumer Privacy, have submitted a new ballot initiative to the California Attorney General’s Office for consideration. The new initiative, titled the “California Consumer Privacy Act of 2020,” would give California voters the opportunity to vote on certain measures related to privacy on the November 2020 ballot. The measures would amend and add numerous provisions to the CCPA, already the nation’s strictest privacy law.

The Attorney General’s Office will accept public comment on the draft initiative until October 25, 2019. Comments can be submitted here.

Under the California Constitution, citizens have the power to adopt or repeal laws and constitutional amendments without the approval of the governor or the Legislature via a statewide ballot initiative. To qualify such measures for the ballot, proponents are required to gather 997,139 valid signatures of voters. In 2018, Mactaggart and his group qualified a similar ballot initiative that would have adopted a more onerous version of the CCPA.  He ultimately withdrew his prior proposed ballot initiative after legislators agreed to pass the CCPA. This time, Mactaggart has suggested that he is planning to push forward with a ballot initiative.

If successful, the ballot initiative could result in a new privacy law that the Legislature would have limited power to amend. This would mean limited tweaks or practical revisions to assist with implementation. In a world where technology is rapidly changing, passage of such a measure could lock in place terms, definitions, rules and policies that could quickly become outdated without an easy way to update.

Mactaggart and his allies have included provisions that would address issues like the following, among others:

• A two-tiered definition of personal information that offers more consumer control over “sensitive personal information” than over general “personal information.” This new category would include things like data regarding a person’s race, health or recent location (via GPS technology).
• An opt-in requirement for the collection of any data on children younger than 16. The CCPA currently requires that children or their guardians (depending on age) opt-in to the sale of children’s personal information.
• New rights for consumers, including the right to opt-in to the sale of “sensitive personal information,” the right to opt-out of the use of “sensitive personal information” for advertising and marketing, and the right to correct inaccurate personal information.
• The creation of a new state agency, the California Privacy Protection Agency, to deal with privacy issues, including fielding complaints and enforcing the CCPA. This would relieve the Attorney General’s Office of its burden of CCPA enforcement, something the Office has said it is ill-equipped to handle with its current resources.
• Force companies to release information on the algorithms used to target or profile customers, particularly with regard to targeted advertisements. It is not clear if there would be protections for trade secrets and similar intellectual property.

We will continue to monitor this effort closely. The initiative is sure to affect companies across industries and across the world, given the size of the California market.