10 min readLast Updated on June 9, 2025 by Deepanshu Sharma
What is the California Consumer Privacy Act?
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), enacted in 2020, safeguards and enforces Californians’ right to privacy of their personal information. Most companies that process the personal information of Californians are covered by this provision of the data privacy legislation. Personal information is quite broad and can refer to just about anything that can be used to identify, identify, or connect with a consumer. This encompasses true names, email addresses, postal addresses, and account numbers, among dozens of other details. CCPA compliance is a set of regulations that organizations must follow to protect the data privacy rights of California residents. It compels companies to respond to customer inquiries, be transparent and honest regarding what data they collect and how they are using it, and implement adequate security measures to protect user data.
What are the key rights in CCPA?
The CCPA lays out several significant privacy requirements that organizations must follow to protect the right to data privacy of Californians. Let’s look at the primary rights that the CCPA affords consumers:
- Right to Know: Enforcing your right to know is made possible by getting your data. Clients are informed about what personal information was gathered, how and why, what was sold or transferred, and to whom. According to the CCPA, consumers have the right to know what personal data a business gathers about them, how it will be used, and with whom it will be shared. Companies are required by law to notify customers of their right to view certain information they have gathered.
- Right to Delete: Under the CCPA, customers have the right, with very few exceptions, to request that companies remove any personal information they may have collected about them. Businesses must adhere to these guidelines. When such requests are made, businesses should also request that the service providers or other parties with whom they share the data remove it from their databases. Businesses must reply to these inquiries within 45 days, unless an extension is needed.
- Right to Opt-Out: California opted to employ an opt-out principle when the GDPT came into force, which demanded consent (opt-in) prior to processing personal data. Consistent with this, businesses are nevertheless free to sell or share personal data unless clients specifically ask them not to. We refer to this process as the Opt-Out. Clients can opt out of having their personal data sold by clicking on the “Do not sell my personal information” link that businesses are required to provide. Customers can opt-out of the sale or transfer of their personal information under the CCPA. Companies need to make it clear to customers that they are able to opt out from having their personal data sold on their website.
- Right to Non-Discrimination: Under CCPA, companies cannot discriminate against consumers by denying them goods or services, charging them different prices, or providing them with inferior services. Consumers who exercise CCPA rights cannot be treated in an inferior manner by an organization, for instance, by being overcharged for basic services. But there are some circumstances under which a business’s capacity to provide particular services is affected by the exercise of CCPA rights. For instance, if an e-commerce site user exercises the “right to delete” and closes their account, they may no longer be able to store their credit card information or shipping address on the site.
Who is Required to Comply with CCPA?
The CCPA applies to for-profit businesses that collect or process the personal information of California residents and meet one of the following criteria:
- Have annual gross revenues of over $25 million;
- Buy, receive, sell, or share the personal information of 50,000 or more California consumers, households, or devices; or
- Earn more than half of their annual revenue from selling the personal information of California consumers.
What types of personal information are covered by the CCPA?
Personal information is any information that identifies a particular consumer or household and includes a huge variety of data such as:
- Identity Information: The two sorts of identifiers used in identification information are direct and indirect. The following constitutes direct identity information: real name, home address, phone number, email address, bank account information, and any further identity information, such as a passport or driver’s license. Data in this form can be directly linked to a specific person. Conversely, knowledge about indirect identifiers refers to an individual’s online activities that they may be connected to. It includes usernames, IP addresses, unique identities, and references to any records that have direct identifiers, such a ticket number or invoice number.
- Commercial Information: The business activity that could potentially identify a specific person is the subject of the commercial information. This includes pre-sale inquiries, property records, marketing materials, and invoices for purchases and sales.
- Biometric Information: A new type of PII that is becoming more popular lately is this information. Biometrics are technically known as body measurements and calculations. To verify identification or gain access, it makes use of measurements relating to human characteristics.This classification comprises, among others, speech patterns data, handwriting, facial scans, and fingertips.
- Electronic Network Activity Information: In certain instances, web activity logs contain information that links the records to a specific user, and in other instances, they contain personally identifiable information (PII). Such electronic network data includes, among other things, surfing logs, application activity, cookie settings, and browsing history.
- Education Information: Information about the individual’s schooling that is available to the public is exempt from this. Publicly accessible details about the person’s educational background are not included in this. This includes personally identifiable information covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. It includes the years and educational institutions attended, the grades earned, and any grants or scholarships received.
- Professional information: This category of information pertains to the working of the subject. This may come directly from the employer or third parties like payroll management companies. This kind of information comprises: Employee ID, Remittance information, Salary history, evaluation reports, contract copies and correspondence.
What is the Difference Between CCPA vs GDPR?
| Feature | CCPA | GDPR |
|---|---|---|
| Applicability | Anyone who is a legal resident of the California region is subject to the CCPA. | All EU users, regardless of their nationality, place of residence, or other characteristics, are subject to GDPR. |
| Purpose | Regulates for-profit companies operating in California that meet certain financial requirements as well as the service providers that they use | Controls data controllers and processors that handle personal information on EU citizens. |
| Activities Included | The CCPA covers acts that involve gathering information from third-party data suppliers, vendors, and consumers. | GDPR covers things like getting users’ consent to treat their data and telling them about the purpose of data collection and processing. |
| Penalties | If a business violates the CCPA, the fines are $2500 for inadvertent infractions, $7500 for purposeful violations, and $100-750 in civil court damages. | Failure to comply with GDPR may result in a fine of $20 million or 4% of the company’s yearly revenue, whichever is greater. |
| Consent | Businesses are required by the CCPA to let customers choose not to (Opt Out) have their data sold or exposed to other parties. | Before any personal data is collected or processed, users must provide their explicit and affirmative consent in accordance with the GDPR. |
How to become CCPA Compliant?
Below are the quick strategies to ensure that your business complies with CCPA:
- Updated Policies and Agreements: Making sure that consumer CCPA rights are easily accessible and unambiguously stated requires updating and revising privacy policies and public notices, which is a crucial first step in becoming CCPA compliant. These policies must be updated in accordance with the CCPA to reflect the types of information being collected, the methods used, and the third parties to whom the information is being sent. Additionally, any future modifications to the privacy policy that affect consumers must be communicated.
- Data Storing: One of the most important aspects of complying with the CCPA is data mapping. It is necessary to compile all of the information that has been gathered and, in the event that the customer requests that it not be shared, to completely erase it. This implies that you must have a procedure in place for figuring out what information you have and with whom it is shared. In order to comply with the CCPA, requests for personal data must be able to recall, for a 12-month period, the precise information you gathered and whether or not it was disclosed to affiliates or other third parties.
- Evaluation of Vendor Contracts: According to the CCPA, you must review your existing vendor agreements and update them to reflect the new rules. This only applies to suppliers who have access to the CCPA-protected personal information. To comply with the CCPA’s data privacy regulations, you will need to amend the contract; once more, noncompliance will result in fines and penalties.
- Data Governance System: A business must be established with a comprehensive data governance system after the data has been stored and the distribution strategy has been decided. It is critical to ensure that all employees in the organization understand the data’s location, use, and security requirements. This requirement indicates that a data privacy management specialist for help because fines and penalties for data breaches can be very expensive.
- Training to Employees: Employees must comprehend the repercussions of noncompliance with the CCPA in addition to the significance of privacy data compliance. The current employee would need to be retrained and made aware of how the CCPA regulations will alter their current responsibilities and procedures. The CCPA must be followed in the language and training materials. Emphasize to employees the consequences of breaking the new CCPA regulation and how crucial it is to the company’s reputation.
What are the Penalties for Violating CCPA?
If (following an audit) a business receives a notice informing them that they are not compliant, they have 30 days to remediate the issue. A failure to do so could result in civil penalties of up to $7,500 per violation, and users can also seek $750 in damages for each data breach. Companies may also be subject to a criminal penalty of up to $2,500 per violation, although this is rare. A failure to comply with the CCPA could leave companies open to additional lawsuits, which could take years to resolve and cost a lot of money (attorney’s fees and reparations).
How does Lepide Help with CCPA Compliance?
The Lepide Data Security Platform provides a number of invaluable tools that can help your organization comply with the CCPA, which include;
CCPA data discovery and classification
In order to adequately protect personal data belonging to Californian citizens and respond to user requests, you first need to know where their data is located. The Lepide solution will automatically scan your file repositories (both on-prem and cloud-based) for CCPA-covered data, and classify it accordingly. This will make it easier to quickly locate user records, as well as assign the appropriate access controls in order to prevent unauthorized access.
Real-time auditing of CCPA-covered data
The Lepide platform uses machine learning models to identify anomalous user activity and will deliver real-time alerts to your analyst’s inbox or mobile device when suspicious changes to CCPA-covered data are detected. Via the Lepide dashboard, you can see which users have access to personal data, and make changes to their permissions if they are deemed excessive. The platform also makes it easy to identify open shares and clean up stale data and redundant user accounts.
Comprehensive compliance reports
In order to comply with the CCPA, it is imperative that you are able to promptly demonstrate your compliance efforts to the relevant authorities. Using the Lepide platform you can easily generate detailed compliance reports that are customized to meet the requirements of the CCPA.
if you’d like to see how the Lepide Data Security Platform can help you comply with the CCPA, schedule a demo with one of our engineers or download the free trial.
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