New Digital Privacy Laws Overview for California and the EU’s GDPR

By Jon Burgess, MBA – 7/18/18

Redlands, CA – We have had a wave of privacy concerns and laws appear over the last few months. With the very public issues with Facebook, ongoing concerns about “Fake News”, and even the ever-present attempts by hackers to gain data.

The major concerns for businesses are the two newly passed laws, The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, AB 375.

Both laws are very similar. They act to protect personal data, they create systems for the individual to know and opt out of databases, and they create penalties for companies failing to comply.

WARNING – While I have taken several Business Law classes, I am NOT a lawyer, and none of this could be considered legal advice. This outline is meant to educate you to the extent of the news laws, and start conversations with your managers and advisors, and if needed, contact your lawyer to address your business exposure.

The overall concern is that your business is not following best practices about data management, and that heavy fines could be assessed. The second concern is about how your organization collects, and more importantly provides reports and deletes personal data.

You may find a positive aspect of the laws if you are already a customer focused organization, where your relationships are valued, you can better handle and address your prospects and customer’s personal data. For any Inbound Marketing strategy, you are using opt-in subscriptions and removing people from unwanted or low performing campaigns. These practices make for more efficient marketing tactics and can set you apart from your competition when putting your customers first.

What follows is an overview of the GDPR, which is now live and the California Privacy act which goes into effect in 2020.

If you do any business in the European Union, you should be very concerned about GDPR. The California law was just past in June of 2018, so we expect all California companies to be on the hook, but it also appears that if you are selling into California you will be responsible to follow the laws. The California law may be adopted across the nation.

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We’ll email you our Digital Privacy Laws Overview, which includes outlines for both the California Privacy Law Changes and the GDPR.