The California Legislature has delayed its plans to expand the scope of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and make all of its provisions apply to personal information related to business-to-business communications and transactions and human resources data. When the CCPA went into effect on January 1, 2020, business-to-business and human resources data were subject to limited exemptions that were set to expire on December 31, 2020. A description of these exemptions can be found here. As you can imagine, because nearly all businesses subject to the CCPA could (and likely did) take advantage of these exemptions, there was concern regarding whether the exemptions would phase-out end of the year or become permanent law.

Businesses have finally received an answer and can now take a sigh of relief. On August 31, 2020, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1281, which extends these exemptions to December 31, 2021. This announcement was much needed relief, and provided some economic certainty during these financially trying times. Passage of Assembly Bill 1281 also means that the California Legislature will likely not pass comprehensive data privacy laws related to human resources data, as some privacy professionals anticipated would occur in 2020.

In sum, businesses have at least one more year to ensure compliance with all of the CCPA’s provisions with respect to their business-to-business and human resources personal information.

Editor: Arsen Kourinian