Amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) continued to advance on Monday, as the California legislature returned from its summer recess. With just five weeks to go until the September 13th deadline for the legislature to pass bills, and fewer than five months until the CCPA is set to take effect, the Senate Appropriations Committee gave the greenlight to six bills: AB 25, AB 846, AB 1564, AB 1146, AB 874, and AB 1355. The bills were ordered to a “second reading,” meaning they head to the Senate floor for consideration without a further hearing in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Two of those bills, AB 874 and AB 1355, will be placed on the Senate’s consent calendar, because they have not been opposed.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also voted to advance AB 1202, the data broker amendment, but placed the bill in the Committee’s suspense file. This procedural action holds bills that will have a significant fiscal impact on the State of California’s budget for consideration all at once to ensure that fiscal impacts are considered as a whole.

Here’s the full list of amendments as of August 12, 2019:

Ordered to Second Reading in the California Senate

EMPLOYEE EXEMPTION: Assembly Bill 25changes the CCPA so that the law does not cover collection of personal information from job applicants, employees, business owners, directors, officers, medical staff, or contractors.
LOYALTY PROGRAMS:Assembly Bill 846 provides certainty to businesses that certain prohibitions in the CCPA would not apply to loyalty or rewards programs.
CONSUMER REQUEST FOR DISCLOSURE METHODS:Assembly Bill 1564 requires businesses to provide two methods for consumers to submit requests for information, including, at a minimum, a toll-free telephone number. A business that operates exclusively online and has a direct relationship with a consumer from whom it collects personal information is only required to provide an email address for submitting CCPA requests.

VEHICLE WARRANTIES & RECALLS: Assembly Bill 1146 exempts vehicle information retained or shared for purposes of a warranty or recall-related vehicle repair.

PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION: Assembly Bill 874streamlines the definition of “publicly available” to mean information that is lawfully made available from federal, state, or local government records. The bill also seeks to amend the definition of “personal information” to exclude deidentified or aggregate consumer information.
CLARIFYING AMENDMENTS:Assembly Bill 1355 exempts deidentified or aggregate consumer information from the definition of personal information, among other clarifying amendments.

Placed on Suspense File of the Senate Committee on Appropriations

DATA BROKER REGISTRATION: Assembly Bill 1202requires data brokers to register with the California Attorney General.

CCPA Update: California Senate Committee Approves Privacy Law Amendments