Powerful California privacy law and right to repair law are both now in effect

A powerful new California privacy law has now taken effect, designed to make it far easier for consumers to request that data brokers delete their data instead of selling it. The state’s right to repair legislation is also now active.

It’s hoped that both laws will serve as models for other US states, with a more ambitious goal of seeing their provisions enacted in federal law …

Powerful California privacy law

California has led the way on privacy, with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) passing into law at the start of 2020. This was the reason you started seeing “Do not sell my info” links on a lot of websites.

Under this law, citizens could ask data brokers and other companies not to sell their personal data, but you had to contact each one individually. Complications with compliance also meant that companies got six months’ grace before the state actually enforced the law.

The Delete Act is a much more powerful law, and will allow individuals to visit a single website to opt out of their personal data being sold by any data broker.

As Engadget reports, the necessary systems will take time to build, so the California Privacy Protection Agency has been given until 2026 to do this.

California is officially the first state to pass a law streamlining personal data removal. On October 10, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 362, known as the Delete Act, into law, requiring the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) to create and roll out a tool allowing state residents to request that all data brokers delete their information […]

The CPPA has until 2026 to build the necessary system and has the authority to charge brokers to use it. Under the Delete Act, each broker must register with the CPPA and fulfill deletion requests every 45 days or risk facing a penalty such as a fine. 

The situation in the US as a whole is still a mess, with a mass of competing privacy laws across the country, so most still want to see a GDPR-style federal privacy law.

California’s right to repair law

The state also played a leading role in supporting the right to repair, first taking a stand back in 2018.

Apple originally lobbied against this and similar legislation, but by the summer of this year had seen which way the wind was blowing, and opted for a U-turn to support the bill.

Engadget reports that this too is now law.

California became just the third state in the nation to pass a “right to repair” consumer protection law on Tuesday, following Minnesota and New York, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 244 […]

“I’m thrilled that the Governor has signed the Right to Repair Act into law,” State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said. “As I’ve said all along, I’m so grateful to the advocates fueling this movement with us for the past six years, and the manufacturers that have come along to support Californians’ Right to Repair. This is a common sense bill that will help small repair shops, give choice to consumers, and protect the environment.”

Photo: Lala Miklós/Unsplash

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