Ashkan Soltani is the First Leader of the CPPA

On October 4, 2021, Ashkan Soltani was appointed as the Executive Director of the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA).  He was appointed by the five-member board of the CPPA.  As the Executive Director, Mr. Soltani is tasked with overseeing the CPPA’s implemementations of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).  He will also be responsible for enforcement and rulemaking with the agency.  Mr. Soltani was involved in the drafting of both the CCPA and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA).

He is highly regarded in the privacy community and considered to be an expert in privacy and security.  He has previously been Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Chief Technology Officer at the White House.  At the FTC, Mr. Soltani assisted in investigations of Google and Facebook.  Since his time at the FTC, Mr. Soltani has continued to work at consumer protection agencies.  He is also a member of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation’s advisory board.

Ashkan Soltani for his part is enthusiastic about the new role.  He indicated that he was “honored to be able to serve” and is “eager to get to work to … begin doing the work required by the CCPA and the CPRA.”  To a certain extent, Mr. Soltani created his own job, as he was involved in drafting the CPRA which created the CPPA.

One of Mr. Soltani’s first responsibilities will be to finalize CPRA regulations prior to the July 1, 2022 deadline.  In the meantime, he will need to hire a staff for the CPPA.

Ashkan Soltani is considered to generally act in the best interests of consumer rights and consumer protections.  However, industry may be happy with his appointment as well as he is known to engage collaborative solutions to privacy matters.

Mr. Soltani’s first enforcement action may end up being related to the Global Privacy Control (GPC).  The GPC initiative is one that he pushed for.  Some law firms are indicating that compliance with GPC signals will not be mandatory at the inception of the CPRA.  It is unlikely that Mr. Soltani shares that view, and as he advocated for the importance of the GPC, it is probably something that he is willing to fight for as the Executive Director.

The CPPA represents another entity getting involved in the enforcement of the CCPA.  That’s probably great news for consumer privacy protections, but likely increases the importance of compliance for companies doing business in California.  Clarip provides enterprise privacy solutions to bring companies up to speed with privacy regulations such as CCPA.  Clarip provides DSR fulfillment, automated data mapping, consent management, vendor management, data risk intelligence, and much more.  Visit us at www.Clarip.com or call us at 1-888-252-5653 for a demo!