The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) imposes a broad array of new legal obligations on businesses to inform consumers about the categories of personal information being collected online and how it will be used. Real estate–related businesses should be mindful that the CCPA’s scope is broader than simply residential tenant information, and may reach employees in California, any California business contacts, and even California visitors to business websites.

The law requires businesses that collect consumers’ personal information to provide consumers, at or before the time of collection, with disclosures about personal information to be collected; to promptly take steps to respond to a verifiable request from a consumer to exercise a right established under CCPA; and not to discriminate against a consumer based on exercise of any CCPA right. Businesses must also ensure that any service provider that processes personal information of California residents is engaged under a written contract that imposes appropriate downstream CCPA obligations. 

Businesses in the real estate industry should carefully assess to what extent they need to modify their external communications, such as their company website, and update their internal processes to comply with the CCPA’s requirements. Although the new law provides a number of exemptions from its requirements, each company should evaluate whether they qualify for any exemptions, and to what extent they need to enhance their protocols to comply with the CCPA before it goes into effect on January 1, 2020.