Privacy in Utah

On paper, the Utah Consumer Privacy Act is underwhelming.  It doesn’t provide a private right of action.  It doesn’t provide as many data subject rights as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), or the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA).

However, a law is only as good as the measures in place to enforce it.  A huge grievance among privacy professionals with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was that it was a paper tiger in practice.  There was rampant violation of the GDPR at various times in the early days, but things have changed and the European data protection authorities are really showing their teeth.

The Utah Consumer Privacy Act is shaping up to possibly be the inverse of the GDPR, an iron lamb.  Limited by the text of the law, the regulators can only do so much, but it appears that Utah is planning to take privacy pretty seriously.

Utah’s government operations privacy officer, Christopher Bramwell, is currently planning to train at least 50 privacy professionals.  After reviewing the staff of 36 state agencies, Bramwell discovered only one certified privacy professional.  50 or more newly trained privacy professionals will be a huge change for Utah state agencies.

Importantly, his plans are moving forward.  With funding from the American Rescue Plan, Utah has been getting contracts to do statewide on-site education that would train employees in every agency, so that each agency would have certified privacy professionals on staff.

With Utah taking privacy more seriously, complying with the Utah Consumer Privacy Act will become all the more important.  Thankfully, Clarip can help businesses become compliant with data privacy laws.  We offer automated data subject request fulfillment, automated data mapping, consent management, vendor management, data risk intelligence scans, and much, much more.  To learn more, visit us at www.clarip.com or call us at 1-888-252-5653.

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Mike Mango, VP of Sales
mmango@clarip.com

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The Utah Consumer Privacy Act