We wanted to better understand the key differences between the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the newer California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). These are critical privacy laws that businesses operating in California need to comply with.
To efficiently compare the nuances across these laws, we utilized Paxton AI.
We simply prompted Paxton to write a detailed comparison of the CCPA and CPRA. In seconds, Paxton generated this insightful essay:
Introduction
The CCPA was a landmark consumer privacy law that went into effect in 2020, giving California residents new rights over their personal information collected by businesses. However, legislators and privacy advocates felt the CCPA did not go far enough in protecting consumer privacy. As a result, California voters passed the CPRA in November 2020, which amends and expands the CCPA. The CPRA makes significant changes to the CCPA's scope, consumer rights, enforcement, and more. Businesses that collect California consumer data need to understand these differences to ensure compliance.
Key Differences
Scope
The CCPA applies to for-profit businesses that collect consumers' personal information, do business in California, and satisfy one of three thresholds:
- Have annual gross revenues over $25 million
- Buy, receive, sell, or share personal information of 50,000+ consumers/households
- Derive 50%+ of annual revenues from selling consumers' personal information
The CPRA expands the CCPA's scope in two main ways:
1. Covers businesses that buy, sell, or share sensitive personal information of 100,000+ consumers or households.
2. Applies to businesses that derive profits from consumers' personal information, even if they do not meet the revenue or information thresholds.This significantly expands the number of businesses subject to California privacy law.
Consumer Rights
The CCPA grants consumers these core rights:
- Right to know what personal information a business collects, uses, discloses, and sells
- Right to delete personal information held by a business
- Right to opt-out of sale/sharing of personal information
- Right to non-discrimination for exercising CCPA rights
The CPRA expands consumer rights:
1. Right to limit use and disclosure of sensitive personal information
2. Right to correct inaccurate personal information
3. Right to opt-out of sharing personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising
4. Right to limit retention of personal information to what is reasonably necessary
This significantly empowers consumers to control their personal data.
Enforcement
The CCPA authorizes civil penalties up to $2,500 per violation or $7,500 per intentional violation. It is primarily enforced by the CA Attorney General.
The CPRA establishes the California Privacy Protection Agency which will have expanded authority and resources for enforcement, including:
- Ability to fine businesses up to $2,500 per violation or up to 4% of worldwide annual revenue
- Conducting audits of businesses to ensure CCPA/CPRA compliance
- Issuing regulations for businesses to followThis enhanced enforcement will motivate businesses to fully comply with the law.
Conclusion
The CPRA substantially expands upon the CCPA to increase privacy protections for California consumers. Businesses must understand these changes to avoid violations.
As you can see, Paxton was able to quickly summarize the major differences between these two laws - including the expanded scope, increased consumer rights, and enhanced enforcement under the CPRA. The essay contains useful citations to validate the accuracy of the information (available on the Paxton platform).
Without AI, conducting this research would have taken hours of reading lengthy legal documents and compiling notes. With Paxton's help, we were able to obtain a comprehensive comparison essay in no time.
