EFF, Coalition of California Privacy Advocates Caution Against Weakening CA Privacy Rights

EFF on Monday joined Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, ACLU California Action, Oakland Privacy, Media Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America in submitting comments to the California Privacy Protection Agency. The Agency is currently writing rules for the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by 2020’s California Privacy Rights Act.

In our comments, EFF and other privacy advocates, criticized several changes to the regulations that “appear to set up additional barriers to consumers’ ability to exercise their rights” under California’s landmark privacy law. These include several changes that loosen requirements for companies to pass on consumer requests to delete, opt-out of sale, or limit the use of sensitive personal information. We also raise concerns about the way the rules, as written, allow businesses to complicate how they process opt-out preference signals.

“This framework threatens to make the opt-out preference signals an unusable mechanism to communicate a consumer’s privacy choices,” the comments said.

This is the second time that privacy groups in California have filed joint comments on the Agency’s proposed rules. You can find comments on the most recent changes here.