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Will the California Consumer Privacy Act Affect My Business?

Does the CCPA affect your business? Discover how to get the professional help that will enable you to stay in step with the new regulations effectively and easily.   

The California Consumer Privacy Act became law in the state of California on January 1, 2020. Discover what the law entails, how it applies to your business, and how you can ensure you remain in compliance with the CCPA at all times.

Does the CCPA Apply to Your Business?

Any business that meets even one of the following thresholds will need to adhere to CCPA requirements:

  • The business has annual gross revenues of $25 million or more.
  • The business buys, sells, or somehow receives or shares for commercial purposes the personal information of at least 50,000 California consumers
  • The business derives 50% or more of its annual revenues from selling consumers’ personal information

Bear in mind that this new law doesn’t just affect California-based companies. If your company does business with a large number of consumers in the state, it will need to meet CCPA requirements or face hefty fines.

What Constitutes “Personal Information”?

When the average business owner thinks of “personal information”, chances are he or she is thinking about information such as full names, social security numbers, addresses, health information, etc. However, the CCPA has an extremely broad definition of the term “personal information”. It includes not only the information noted above but any information that relates to, describes, could be associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to a particular person or household. Such information may include a person’s name, email address and where he or she works. It could also include one’s name and social media account or a consumer’s browsing history or geographical location. If you use these inferences to create profiles of customers, the profiles also count as “personal information”.

What Requirements Do You Need to Meet?

The CCPA puts forth a plethora of new requirements you’ll need to meet in order to legally do business in the state of California. These requirements include:

  • Making it easy for California consumers to exercise their CCPA rights by providing a button on the business homepage titled “Do not sell my personal information”.
  • Updating your privacy policy to include a link to your “Do not sell my personal information” website page
  • Deleting a consumer’s personal information within 45 days of receiving a verified request to do so
  • Providing a detailed report outlining how a consumer’s personal information was used, within 45 days of receiving a verified request from the consumer to provide said report. This report must include information from the preceding twelve months and tell the consumer what categories of personal information was collected, the specific pieces of information the business has about the consumer, A corporate statement outlining why this information was collected and what type of third parties the information was shared with.

How to Get Professional Compliance Help

A good IT managed service provider can help you update your IT system to ensure that you are complying with CCPA requirements at all times. What’s more, an IT MSP can customize your office programs, optimizing your set-up to make it easy for you to comply with these new industry requirements without hiring additional personnel or pulling workers from other, important jobs.

DeVeera is a top-tier IT managed service provider that offers a range of IT products and services for California-based businesses. The company specializes in offering IT assistance to healthcare companies, professional companies, hotels, restaurants, the agricultural industry, and the cannabis industry. Get in touch with us today to find out how we can help you consistently meet CCPA requirements while also improving your overall IT structure, set-up, and security.