Melissa G. Powers, Associate

The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (the “CCPA”) took effect a little over a year ago on January 1, 2020. While many businesses worked to bring themselves into compliance with the CCPA by that date, compliance with the CCPA does not end there. Under the CCPA, not only does a business need to update its privacy policy when it changes how it collects and uses personal information, but also there are a number of items that the CCPA requires businesses to review and analyze annually. Have you done your annual CCPA housekeeping? Use the below checklist to find out.

• Have you updated the information disclosed in your privacy policy? Businesses must update that information at least once every 12 months. In particular, consider whether your privacy policy requires updates in response to the following questions:
  • Does your privacy policy accurately identify the categories of personal information your business collected about consumers in the preceding 12 months?
  • Does your privacy policy accurately identify the categories of personal information that your business disclosed for a business purpose in the preceding 12 months?
  • If your business did not disclose consumers’ personal information for a business purpose in the preceding 12 months, does your privacy policy disclose this fact?
  • Does your privacy policy accurately identify the categories of personal information of consumers that your business sold in the preceding 12 months?
  • If your business did not sell consumers’ personal information in the preceding 12 months, does your privacy policy disclose this fact?
• Are you keeping track of the number of requests that your business received from a consumer? A business is not required to provide personal information to a consumer in response to a request more than twice in a 12-month period.
• How far does your business look back when disclosing personal information in response to a request? The disclosure is only required to cover the 12-month period preceding the business’s receipt of the consumer request.
• Are you keeping track of when a consumer has opted-out of the sale of the consumer’s personal information and is your business respecting the consumer’s decision to opt-out for 12 months? Businesses must respect a consumer’s decision to opt-out for at least 12 months before requesting that the consumer authorize the sale of the consumer’s personal information.
• Do you know if your business, alone or in combination, bought, sold, or received or shared for the business’s commercial purposes the personal information of at least 10 million consumers in a calendar year? If so, by July 1 of every calendar year, your business will need to compile and disclose the following metrics for each category of consumer request received by your business (i.e., requests to know, to delete, and if applicable, to opt out of sale): (i) total requests received, (ii) total requests complied with in whole, (iii) total requests complied with in part, (iv) total requests denied, and (v) average number of days (median or mean) to substantively respond to requests. You can provide these metrics in the privacy policy or on a separate page linked to in the privacy policy.
• If your business has no reasonable method by which it can verify any consumer in connection with a consumer request, have you evaluated whether your business can establish a reasonable method? Businesses must evaluate and document whether they can establish a reasonable method at least once every 12 months.

If you need assistance with your CCPA compliance efforts or want more information on compliance with the CCPA, please contact one of our Cybersecurity & Data Privacy attorneys.