This week, California residents voted to pass Proposition 24 – the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) –which is the next evolution of privacy law and, according to its supporters, strengthens the perceived weaknesses of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
In a nutshell, CPRA wants to limit the use and sale of personal information for addressable advertising and will also create a new state government agency in California with specific direction to enforce CCPA.
This could cause several challenges, as there’s a whole chain of players such as publishers, supply side platforms, demand side platforms and advertisers in the digital ecosystem when it comes to the use and sale of data. Across that chain, they’re sharing data that’s considered personal information with each other. The proposed law wants to stop this sharing of data because supporters think if someone has opted out of the “sale” of data that data sharing in the digital ecosystem should not be allowed. And this is where the debate starts because the digital ecosystem is saying it’s not a sale because no exchange of anything of tangible value is taking place. This new law will change the definition of “sell” to include “sharing of data.”
There’s also a provision in the proposed law that says a covered business can use a service provider to help with their data strategy as long as there’s a written contract that prohibits certain things, such as the service provider not combining the data from the business with third party data.
This really restricts what data providers like Acxiom and others can do for their clients. Coalitions like the US and California Chambers of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Privacy for America, and the ANA are against this law and have provided several points of view on these issues helping educate California residents of the potential harms, not just to the marketing and advertising industry, but to the Californian, national and global economies.
For fifty years, Acxiom has been a leader in data privacy and ethics, using information to help brands understand customers and make marketing more relevant. Jordan Abbott, Chief Data Ethics Officer at Acxiom, released the following statement regarding the passage of the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA):
“CPRA will substantially alter the way advertising works and has the potential to limit innovative uses of data. CPRA was passed less than a year after CCPA went into effect and without waiting to see whether the current law was working effectively. Laying CPRA aside, Acxiom believes it is in our country’s best interest to enact a national privacy law that benefits both consumers and businesses by providing transparency, uniformity, notice and choice, without deterring innovation.”
CPRA could substantially alter the way digital advertising works by ushering ‘do not track’-type technology by default, making it increasingly more difficult to activate advertising at an individual level. However, it could also compel many companies, including very large tech companies, who felt they fell outside the scope of the current law, to comply.
For these reasons, Acxiom believes it’s time for a national data privacy law, one that gives people meaningful rights — to know who has their data, how it is used and how to opt out while preserving current responsible uses of data for marketing and advertising. It’s in our country’s best interest to have a national standard that, done thoughtfully, benefits both people and businesses by providing uniformity and certainty without deterring innovation and competition. But unfortunately, intervening events in 2020 have taken the focus off of this important legislation.
In the end, a national privacy law should be about accountability – people shouldn’t have to think about it or worry about how their data is being used. People should know their data is under control and won’t be used to harm them. If someone wants to take steps to protect their data further, that option should be available to them.
California Residents Pass the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) from Acxiom on Vimeo.
