EMBiz: What Marketers Need to Know About the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)
What Marketers Need To Know About The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)
Laurel Mintz
Elevating Brands with Legal Expertise
Hi, everyone, Laurel Mintz with Elevate My Brand, as you probably know because I say it all the time, I'm a reformed or recovering attorney. But that means that when we are focused on marketing for our clients, we have this extra layer, this overlay of legality that by necessity and by background, I have to have and we like to give to our clients to make sure that they feel really protected on many levels.
Understanding the CPRA & Empowering Consumers
Today, what I wanted to talk about was what marketers need to know about the California Privacy Rights Act or the CPRA, which gives consumers more control over their data and privacy by changing opt-out clauses to no sharing. Basically, this means that you are limiting your liability on the brand side by being selective about what data you save. This is really important because California is trying to protect us as consumers to make sure that brands and companies aren't selling our data, which has been happening for so many years. I can't tell you, and I’m sure you’ve had this experience where you’ve opted out a million times of an email newsletter and you still get it, or you block it and you still get it. This is really trying to protect against that.
The Consequences of Selling Consumer Data
The other really important tip if you’re a brand is making sure that you are not selling that information. You are going to get in a lot of trouble in the next couple of years and, I think, for the foreseeable future if you are taking this data and selling it, make sure that as a brand, you are re-evaluating the data fields that you collect. It's really important to have first-party or zero-party data, especially in what is going to be a copy-list environment from the ad side. But from a privacy side, just make sure that you are collecting only what is necessary for you to make smart marketing decisions and have smart conversations with your consumers because you can get into trouble on that.
Safeguarding Sensitive Data
On the other side of it, if you are collecting sensitive data, make sure that you have a mechanism to delete that data over a specific period of time, specifically at the consumer's request. And really, again, reconsider whether you want to use third-party data if you're buying lists or buying information from other parties, which again, a lot of special service-based businesses and product companies do all the time.
Update Your Privacy Policies
Make sure you update your privacy policies to be in line with the CPRA. Oftentimes what happens is we make all of the changes with the pop-ups and the data that we're capturing. But in the back end in our like, you know, privacy policies and the little sub-links on the bottom, we don't update what those policies say, and they aren't aligned with the CPRA.
Opt-In & Terms of Service
Finally, make sure that you include an opt-in feature and terms of service. If you don't already have these, you really, really should. It's kind of basic legal 101 as it relates to having a digital presence.
We Can Help Protect You
And of course, if you need any help or support on that, you can reach out to us, and we can share a bit more. But at the very least, make sure that you are protecting yourself, not capturing or selling any data that you don't need to. Don't sell data, period. And make sure you're updating all of your rules and responsibilities to be aligned with the new laws.