The state of California recently saw new legislation introduced and passed that aims to bring more transparency to the trade in peoples personal data. AB 375, which will go into effect in January 2020, gives consumers the right to ask businesses for the type and categories of personal information being collected. It also requires businesses to disclose the purpose for the collection or sale of information, as well as the identity of the third-party organizations receiving the data. Consumers are given the right to request that data be deleted and initiate civil action of an organization that failed to protect their personal data. The bill closely mirrors Europes General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the topic of privacy is even more urgent since the Facebook scandal, which revealed that profile data on millions of users had been transferred to data-profiling firm Cambridge Analytica.
