The law is incredibly complex, and so envisioned the possibility of “authorized agents” that would exercise data rights on your behalf.
Eric De Grasse
Chief Technology Officer
19 January 2021 (Paris, France) – Much has been written about the new California data privacy law. While awkward and flawed with much of its connective tissue ripped out during the negotiation process, it is starting to show intriguing ways to empower Americans to limit how our data can be used.
Under the law, state residents — and in some cases, all Americans — can demand that large companies show people what data they have about you and whom they’ve shared it with. People can also instruct the companies to delete and not “sell” the data they have about you. NOTE: there isn’t agreement on the legal definition of “selling”. Strategically, the adtech and data vendor lobbyists successfully stripped that out of the final version.
And while the law is far from perfect, consumers’ biggest complaint is that it’s complicated. People must go to each organization that might have their data to delete or restrict what it can do with it.
But the California law also envisioned the possibility of “authorized agents” that would exercise data rights on your behalf. Instead of you filling out 100 forms to ask 100 companies to delete your data, you would pick a privacy assistant to do it for you. Consumer Reports last month started offering to be a privacy assistant as a test project.
The most intriguing idea is that the privacy assistant might just be a web browser where you check a box once and each site you visit then gets an automated notice to prohibit the personal information collected there from being shared or sold. Think of it as a version of the telemarketer “Do Not Call” list.
So far, a few websites have started to add this privacy agent feature. The New York Times is among the organizations involved, in both helping to develop the browser specifications and agreeing to implement people’s choices.
If California determines that this kind of privacy agent is legally binding, I expect this project to expand.
