On June 1, 2020, the California Attorney General's Office submitted the final text of California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA") regulations to the Office of Administrative Law ("OAL") for review. Typically, OAL has thirty (30) working days to determine whether regulations under its review satisfy the procedural requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. The California State Attorney General has requested that OAL expedite its review and make the CCPA regulations effective on the same day that they are filed with the Secretary of State. It is uncertain at this time whether OAL will comply with the California State Attorney General's request and enact the final CCPA regulations by the July 1, 2020 enforcement date.
When will the final CCPA Regulations take effect?
Brief History of the CCPA
The CCPA was hastily written into law on June 28, 2018, to prevent a citizen ballot initiative from going into effect that would have prevented the State Legislature from amending or repealing the proposition without voter input. The law went into effect on January 1, 2020, and required the California State Attorney General to adopt regulations on or before July 1, 2020. On October 11, 2019, the California State Attorney General released the first draft of the CCPA regulations for public hearing and comment. Since then, two (2) modifications of the original draft have been released. Recently, we blogged about the second round of modifications released by the California State Attorney General. Those modifications have now been finalized (without additional changes) and presented to OAL for review.
Final CCPA Timeline
For regulations to go into effect on July 1, ordinarily OAL would need to approve the regulations and file them with the Secretary of State between March 1 and May 31. As such, It would appear that the California State Attorney General has missed the opportunity to have a July 1 effective date and that the effective date would slip to after the next period of review, which would be October 1. However, in the case of the CCPA regulations the California State Attorney General has requested that: 1) OAL expedite its review; so that 2) the final CCPA regulations become effective on the same day that they are filed with the Secretary of State. It is unclear whether OAL will grant this request, but if it does, the final CCPA regulations will become effective July 1, 2020. However, given that OAL is burdened with a long list of other regulations for its review, it is possible that the final CCPA regulations will not become effective until October 1, 2020.
Although it is uncertain when the final regulations will be approved, the California State Attorney General has stated that it still intends to begin enforcement of the CCPA on July 1, 2020. Given the foregoing, businesses should have already taken measures to become CCPA compliant. If not, they should be working diligently to ensure compliance by July 1.
Related Blog Posts:
CCPA Record Keeping Requirements
CCPA Forms: The Right to Opt-Out, Request to Know and Request to Delete
CCPA Law: The Private Right of Action
Originally published June 5, 2020.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
