Ted Claypoole in Atlanta Business Chronicle: California Consumer Privacy Act Represents Major Shift in how Consumer Data May Be Collected, Used

ATLANTA—Business across the country and around the world are taking care to ensure they are in compliance with the sweeping new California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Womble Bond Dickinson attorney Ted Claypoole has been working closely with companies to help them prepare for the CCPA, which took effect Jan. 1, and he recently spoke with the Atlanta Business Chronicle about the CCPA’s requirements.

The CCPA allows consumers to access and control data collected on them by companies. While the CCPA is just a California state law, it is too unwieldy for most companies to have a separate set of rules just for California residents, so the CCPA is forcing businesses to change how they collect data on all consumers.

Claypoole tells the Atlanta Business Chronicle that the CCPA “starts putting the us more in line with the other industrialized countries.” Up to this point, he said the US has dealt with privacy law on a sector-by-sector basis. For example, the financial services and healthcare industries have their own highly specific sets of rules for collecting and managing consumer information
 

“That's not really the way that Canada or Europe or Japan or other countries are managing it,” said Claypoole. “In those places individuals have more ownership over their own data and are treated like they own the data that describes them. We really haven't done that in this country before.”

The CCPA applies to businesses that:

1. Earn more than $25 million in gross revenue;
2. Collect data on more than 50,000 people; or
3. Receive more than 50 percent of company revenue from selling consumer data information.

Click here to read “Companies scrambling to comply with new California privacy law” in the Atlanta Business Chronicle (subscription required).

Also, Womble Bond Dickinson’s Privacy and Cybersecurity Team has written extensively on the CCPA. Click here for more from the CCPA Task Force.

Ted Claypoole leads Womble Bond Dickinson (US) LLP’s IP Transactions and FinTech Teams and co-chairs the firm’s Privacy and Cybersecurity Team. Clients call on Ted to help manage, protect and profit from information, and his practice spans all sectors of the information economy. He helps companies design data analytics strategies and comply with relevant laws and contracts. Privacy and cybersecurity are the starting points for client advice on data collected through transactions, online interactions and the Internet of Things, with an emphasis on payments and financial activity.