Member Article

Key Points

• On Aug. 31, 2020, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 1281 (AB 1281).
• AB 1281, if signed, will guarantee that certain California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) exemptions will be extended beyond their initial deadline, December 2020.
• Importantly, AB 1281 will give covered businesses at least another year before they need to comply with CCPA’s provisions when collecting and using employee data or business-to-business related personal information.

California businesses have been worried for the better part of 2020 as the exemptions regarding business-to-business and employee data were scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Had these exemptions expired, businesses would have had to comply with broader obligations under the CCPA. For example, businesses would have to give the same rights to their employees as they give to their consumers, such as the right to opt-out of the collection of personal information. This would have required a massive undertaking in an already exceptionally difficult year.

However, AB 1281, if signed by Governor Newsom, will extend these exemptions until the end of 2021. Had AB 1281 not passed, businesses would have had to face additional uncertainty for a few months and wait and see what happens in November when California votes on the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). If CPRA is approved, which it likely will be, it would automatically extend the deadline of these exemptions until the end of 2022. However, approving AB 1281 now as opposed to waiting until November, will give businesses answers sooner, rather than later. This is a welcome development and will bring some certainty to covered businesses that they do not need to change their data operations when it comes to their B2B relationships, and their collection and use of personal information from their employees by Jan. 1, 2021.

If you have questions regarding the CCPA in general, or these exemptions in particular, and want to know what you should do with this additional time, please contact one of Hanson Bridgett’s privacy attorneys.