Janis Kestenbaum co-hosted a roundtable conversation with a group of leading privacy lawyers from civil society, the technology industry, and academia. The wide-ranging discussion covered legislative developments in privacy at the state and federal levels, privacy issues that emerged from both the COVID-19 pandemic and recent protests for racial justice, privacy developments in the European Union and their impact on American businesses, the interplay between privacy and competition, and what the FTC is and should be doing in the privacy arena.

JANIS: We are having this conversation about a month before the November 2020 election, so we would like to start by talking about California, where privacy is on the ballot. On November 3, California residents will vote yes or no on the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), also known as Proposition 24. This ballot initiative would substantially amend or expand upon the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

It was just two years ago that the California Legislature adopted the CCPA, which was heralded as the broadest consumer privacy law in the United States, and frequently compared to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The CCPA only went into effect in January of this year, and became enforceable by the California Attorney General in July of 2020.

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