California Gov. Edmund Brown in late September signed bills aimed at protecting consumers in the ever-changing arena of guarding their personal information.

Knowing your rights is half the battle; stay abreast of these changes so you can detect when your information is at risk and what you can do about it.

Alexa, keep the bad guys out: California breaks new ground to guard consumer privacy

Technology is evolving at breakneck speed, and California wants to make sure new tech doesn’t accelerate out of reach of laws protecting the people who use it.

You’ve no doubt noticed the proliferation of “smart” devices such as voice-enabled speakers (i.e. the Amazon Echo), thermostats, light bulbs, video doorbells — really any device that connects to the Internet to, say, let it play any song you request or give you control from anywhere via your mobile phone.

With Senate Bill 327, California became the first state to pass legislation setting basic security standards for smart devices, or to use the jargon, the Internet of Things (IoT). The law is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2020.

Basically, manufacturers of devices connected to the Internet now are required to take steps to keep hackers from accessing those devices. That means either having a preprogrammed password unique to each device, or making sure new users have to set up a way they’ll verify that the right person is using the device.

Existing law had required reasonable steps to secure consumer information, whether the business was disposing of it or hanging onto it. But the law didn’t get specific to these rapidly multiplying IoT devices — until now. The California law could set the stage for a discussion at the federal level.

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist at the Harvard Kennedy School, told The Washington Post that the law will help everybody and that “it probably doesn’t go far enough.”

State legislators clarify consumer rights concerning their data

Separately, state legislators amended the California Consumer Privacy Act, passed in July, to smooth out some wrinkles in the initial law.

Senate Bill 1121, which also takes effect at the beginning of 2020, has multiple protections for consumers, including:

• Requiring businesses to tell consumers in a reasonably accessible way that they can request that their information be deleted.
• Allowing consumers whose privacy was violated to sue, including seeking help from the Attorney General. The AG could assess a civil penalty of up to $2,500 per violation or $7,500 per intentional violation.

Read more about the risks to your privacy — and ways to protect yourself — in our recent blog, Research Shows 76% of Data Breaches are Financially Driven; Are You Safe?

Has your privacy been violated? Contact Keller Grover for a free consultation. During more than 25 years of litigating, the lawyers at Keller Grover have secured billions for their clients.