Peter Blenkinsop Discusses New Privacy Legislation in California With Law360

In “Calif.'s Novel Privacy Moves May Dim Federal Law’s Chances,” Law360 turned to privacy, cybersecurity and data strategy partner Peter Blenkinsop for his commentary on new legislation in California that restricts how companies can collect and use the personal data of those under the age of 18.

“It seems as though it’s getting increasingly unlikely that there will be an agreement on federal legislation,” said Blenkinsop. “To the extent that the view of the California delegation is that California law is way ahead of what [Congress] is considering, they’re going to demand that state laws continue to be protected, and that’s not likely to be accepted by Republicans. There’s a gap there, and it’s not clear how they’re going to get over that gap.”

Blenkinsop added, “It seems as though the application of the privacy law to employment and B2B data was almost an afterthought when the law was being drafted. So, figuring out how the law applies to those categories is taking a lot of time and effort.”

Regarding the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) releasing its first set of proposed rules, Blenkinsop explained, “The new California privacy agency was already sort of behind in terms of its timetable for issuing final regulations for the CPRA [California Privacy Rights Act], and now its tasks have become much more challenging because it will presumably want to and hopefully will provide clarity on how the regulations apply in the context of these other categories.”

The new California design code could end up helping to push Congress to move forward on this proposal, since “if the federal government doesn’t adopt stricter kids’ privacy standards, then other states are going to follow in the footsteps of California,” noted Blenkinsop.

“The 30-day cure period allowed companies to approach the CCPA in a way that, if there was uncertainty as to how a provision would be interpreted by the AG, they could adopt a more aggressive interpretation and then modify that based on what came out of the AG’s office,” Blenkinsop explained. “But with that going away at the end of the year, companies will have to take a look at these kinds of enforcement actions and amend their practices to be in line with what’s indicated there.”

The full article is available for Law360 subscribers.