The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will have numerous benefits, allowing for:
The CCPA is a bill intended to protect consumer privacy rights. This act will give California consumers new rights regarding the information companies collect about them and will go into effect on July 1, 2020. You can learn more about the CCPA here.
Benefits to Consumers
By design, the CCPA will provide great benefits to consumers. They will have control over their data in unprecedented ways.
For one, consumers will have the right to know all data collected about them by businesses. They will be able to request this data for free twice annually, without fear of retribution from companies. This allows consumers to be informed and decide whether they want companies to have that data or not, giving them greater peace of mind.
If they don’t like the data that has been collected about them, consumers will also have the right to opt out of having their data sold. Not only that, but consumers can request to have their data deleted, including anything they have posted online, and expect those requests to be met. If people post something on social media as teenagers that they regret later on when they are job-seeking adults, they can have their posts deleted. Their decisions of the past don’t have to mar their public reputation; they have the right to delete those posts.
If companies collect personal data on consumers and have that information stolen, consumers will have the right to sue those companies, helping them take a stand against identity theft. Companies will be more inclined to protect data from hackers if they know that they can be sued for losing the private information of their consumers.
Additionally, data cannot be collected at all on consumers who opt out. For children under 16 there is further protection: a mandated opt-in for their data to be collected in the first place. This protects minors, giving them greater privacy.
Overall, the CCPA grants consumers greater transparency from companies. Companies will have to be upfront about what information is collected and for what purpose. Personal information cannot be sold without the consent of the consumer.
Benefits to Businesses
The most obvious benefit of the CCPA to large businesses is the competitive advantage that compliance brings. As all California companies must be compliant, businesses operating just in California won’t have an advantage over each other. However, data privacy is becoming increasingly important to consumers globally, and customers will gravitate towards companies that provide them with more privacy. Although a company may become CCPA compliant for its California consumers, large companies with consumers in states and countries outside of California will be able to boast about their robust, superior security measures.
Data regulation is going to continue to be a big issue in the coming years. Already, more states in the US are coming up with their own pieces of legislature similar to the CCPA in nature. Becoming CCPA compliant prepares companies for this continuing regulation. Although some points are sure to vary from state to state, only minimal changes or improvements will need to be made if companies are already CCPA compliant. It may seem expensive to become CCPA compliant now, but in the end becoming compliant will pay off because data regulation is continuing to be passed. Companies cannot choose to avoid this cost because it will be relevant for years to come as more regulation comes into effect.
Because the CCPA will restrict the sale of most consumers’ personal information between companies, companies will be forced to rely on first-party data more often. They will have to collect their own data on customers. This will greatly benefit companies because they will know exactly where their information comes from and know of its accuracy. Obtaining information from other sources as has been done in prior times meant that companies did not always know where the information came from and how it was acquired. With the CCPA in effect, companies will be forced to gather information on their own. The CCPA makes it more difficult for companies to obtain consumer information, but this will allow them to have more reliable data in the long run and force them to rethink and improve their marketing strategies.
In having more accurate data, companies will be able to improve their marketing to consumers. Companies will no longer have a distant connection to their consumers; rather, they will be closer than ever to the wants of their consumers because they will be forced to interact with them on a closer level. Companies will be more in tune with how to market to their consumers because they will have more accurate information on them.
By nature of the bill, the CCPA may seem to only benefit consumers. After all, it was designed with them in mind. However, upon closer examination, it is clear that there are multiple benefits to the businesses that the CCPA affects. All this data regulation and the consequential changes to become compliant may just prove to be worth the effort for companies after all.
