Expert Q&A: What Employers Need to Know About the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA)

Purvi Patel and Mary Race were featured in a Thomson Reuters' Practical Law Expert Q&A on the employment law implications of Proposition 24, a ballot initiative that enacted the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA) following its passage on November 3, 2020.

"Employers should know that the CPRA, a law that amends the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), is likely to impact how they collect, use, and disclose "workforce" personal information," according to Purvi and Mary. "The workforce is broader than only employees and also includes job applicants, independent contractors, owners, directors, officers, and medical staff members. Workforce personal information covers information collected and used in the context of a workforce member's current, former, or potential role as a member of the covered business."

They added: "Employers should be aware that although the CPRA extends the CCPA's partial exception for certain workforce personal information through January 1, 2023, the exception only applies until the CPRA's operative date and expires just as businesses must comply with the CPRA's substantive obligations. As a result, employers should prepare far in advance...to be able to comply with the CPRA."

"As employers prepare, they should also keep in mind that CPRA regulations are still forthcoming. The CPRA sets a July 1, 2022 deadline for issuing final regulations. Until then, however, a fair amount of uncertainty remains around a wide range of topics, especially those likely to affect employers' use of workforce personal information, such as responding to access, deletion, and correction requests, submitting privacy risk assessments, and using profiling and automated decision-making."

Read the full article (subscription required).