By Sophia Bollag
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) --California will soon have what experts call the nation's most far-reaching law to give consumers more control over their personal data under a bill the governor signed Thursday.
The law will compel companies to tell customers upon request what personal data they've collected, why it was collected and what categories of third parties have received it.
The new law will take effect Jan. 1, 2020, and lawmakers say they will likely make alterations to improve the policy before then.
Consumers will also be able to ask companies to delete their information and refrain from selling it.
It's similar to data privacy regulation in the European Union, which also aims to give consumers control over use of their data.
The California bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown will apply only to California consumers. However, internet users in other states will likely see changes, said Cynthia Larose, a cybersecurity expert at the law firm Mintz Levin.
"It's going to be impractical for companies to maintain two separate sets of privacy protections — one for California and one for everyone else," she said.
The move by California came after large breaches in recent years at companies including Target and Equifax. Facebook also has faced intense scrutiny amid revelations that Republican-linked consulting firm Cambridge Analytica collected data from millions of Facebook users without their knowledge.
The bill by Assemblyman Ed Chau, an Arcadia Democrat, gives companies the ability to offer discounts to customers who allow their data to be sold and charge those who opt out a reasonable amount based on how much the company makes selling the information.
It also bars companies from selling data from children younger than 16 without consent.
"We in California are taking a leadership position with this bill," said Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a Van Nuys Democrat who co-authored the bill. "I think this will serve as an inspiration across the country."
Brown signed the measure just hours after lawmakers passed it with no dissenting votes in a last-minute scramble to convince San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart to remove a similar initiative from consideration for the November ballot ahead of a Thursday deadline.
Mactaggart spent $3 million on the related initiative but withdrew it shortly after the law was signed.
Voter-enacted initiatives are much harder to alter than laws passed through the legislative process.
Given the significance and complexity of the issue, supporters and even many opponents said they wanted legislators to pass the bill instead of allowing the initiative to move forward so lawmakers can more easily change it in the future.
Lawmakers suggested the bill will need amendments.
Republican Assemblyman Jay Obernolte of Hesperia said he thinks the parts of the bill allowing people to sue companies over data breaches are too broad.
Although the bill is aimed at regulating internet and tech companies, some opponents say it could have unintended consequences on other industries.
A lobbyist for the newspaper industry, for example, said he worried the bill could harm news reporting by allowing subjects of negative investigative stories to prevent publication. Lawmakers said that's not the bill's intent.
TechNet, a technology lobbying group, urged lawmakers to improve the law before it takes effect "so it provides meaningful privacy protections for Californians while also allowing all the benefits and opportunities consumers expect from U.S. technology to continue."
"Policymakers around the country looking at what California has done on this issue should understand that the California Legislature's work is far from finished and that this law remains a work in progress," the group said in a statement.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More