AB-25, AB-846 and AB-1416 CCPA Amendments Passed by California Assembly

Three more CCPA amendments were passed by the California State Assembly this week as it reaches the legislative deadline for passing bills in the house of origin today. The approved amendments are:

AB-25 – Passed on May 29th by a vote of 77-0-3.
AB-846 – Passed on May 28th by a vote of 69-4-7.
AB-1416 – Passed on May 29th by a vote of 47-17-16.

There were also a few other privacy bills passed that do not touch upon the text of the California Consumer Privacy Act. We will roundup these bills and post a separate summary of them shortly.

AB-25 – Employee Data Exclusion

AB-25 adds a subsection to the definition of a consumer which provides for the exclusion of certain employee data:

“(2) ‘Consumer’ does not include a natural person whose personal information has been collected by a business in the course of a person acting as a job applicant or as an employee, contractor, or agent, on behalf of the business, to the extent their personal information is used for purposes compatible with the context of the person’s activities for the business as a job applicant, employee, contractor, or agent of the business.”

By excluding employees and prospective employees from the law, they would not be able to ask for the information the business has collected about them or request deletion of their personal information. It would also mean that they were not able to bring a private right of action against the company if it suffered a data breach after it did not take reasonable security measures.

The CCPA currently defines a consumer as “a natural person who is a California resident, as defined in Section 17014 of Title 18 of the California Code of Regulations, as that section read on September 1, 2017, however identified, including by any unique identifier.”

The bill also makes a few other minor technical changes to the new CA privacy law. The other area of interest is the addition of Section 2 to the bill, which reads: “SEC. 2. It is the intent of the Legislature to clarify how a business shall comply with a consumer’s request for specific pieces of information in a privacy protective manner.” This addition suggests at least one other change is being considered for the CCPA through the bill if they can reach a consensus around the text.

AB-846 – Loyalty Programs

This bill would add the proposed Section 1798.126 to permit businesses to offer a different price, rate, level or quality of goods or services to a consumer, as long as it is not unjust, unreasonable, coercive, or usurious in nature, and it is in connection with a consumer’s voluntary participation in a loyalty, rewards, discount or club card program.

AB-1416 – Four Year Exception for Sharing with Government or for Security/Fraud

This bill would alter sections of Section 1798.145 of the CCPA. It provides exemptions for businesses complying with rules or regulations in furtherance of state or federal laws, to the right to opt-out allowing the sale of personal information to detect security incidents or fraud, and allowing information to be provided to a government agency in furtherance of a government program provided that certain conditions are met. The changes will sunset on January 1, 2024 and it will revert to the previous version of this section.