CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2020, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“PROP. 24 WOULD TOUGHEN PRIVACY
PROTECTIONS”
On its
surface, few California propositions have ever been as confusing as this fall’s
Proposition 24, which aims to toughen a 2018 state law allowing consumers to
regulate how much of their privacy Internet companies like Facebook and Google
should be allowed to violate.
To
fully understand the stakes, it’s helpful to watch the Netflix documentary “The
Social Dilemma,” which shows how social media companies change people’s
behavior by using information they collect on what emails folks open, which
websites they visit, where people live and travel and much more.
For
each bit of such information these companies collect and sell, they get a
couple of pennies per buyer, which does not sound like much, but adds up to
billions of dollars every year.
If you
wonder why American political opinion is so deeply divided, former tech
executives including the chief designer of Facebook’s “Like” function describe
in the documentary how people who do a Google search in various localities
often get very different information than folks who live elsewhere. The same
for people who donate to one party and those who donate to another.
In each
case, prior opinions and preferences are reinforced, so that even when things
change in real life, they often do not alter people’s perceptions and opinions.
The
2018 California Consumer Privacy Act aimed to correct some of this. Now the
same Piedmont-based real estate developer who caused legislators to pass that
law is behind Prop. 24. He contributed almost all the $5.3 million given (as of
Oct. 1) to the pro-24 group Californians for Consumer Privacy. That committee
name and the name of the lead anti-24 group, Californians for Real Privacy, are
similar enough to confuse many voters. This is nothing new; the California
initiative movement has a long history of misleading committee names.
The big
contributor, Alistair Mactaggart, backs Prop. 24 as a way to toughen the
existing law, which allows consumers to request free reports on their personal
data that are collected and sold by businesses. Businesses covered include
those with more than $25 million in annual revenue and ones that sell and share
personal data of more than 50,000 persons a year, or earn at least half their
annual income from selling personal data. Companies can be fined for
violations.
Prop.
24 would add to these very modest protections by giving each consumer power to
stop companies from tracking them precisely, allowing you to forbid the sale of
information on things like how often you visit a gym or McDonald’s, your health
insurance claims and much more, unless you explicitly give permission. You
would also be able to stop companies from tracking your movements via cellphone
apps and automotive electronics.
Prop.
24 also sets up America’s first official privacy regulators, the California
Privacy Protection Agency, modeled partly on European regulators which provide
their citizens with far more privacy than most Americans now have.
The
proposal also would make it harder for state legislators, continually lobbied
by the big Internet interests, to weaken existing privacy rights.
One
reason for Prop. 24 is that Mactaggart compromised with legislators two years
ago, pulling a very tough privacy proposition he had qualified for the 2018
ballot in return for passage of the current law. That removed the possibility
of Mactaggart’s putative proposition losing, which would have left Californians
with almost no protection.
Mactaggart
promised to come back with stronger rules later, and Prop. 24 represents that
effort. “This makes it much harder to weaken privacy in California in the
future,” says the ballot argument signed by his wife Celine, “by preventing
special interests and politicians from undermining privacy rights.”
Little
money has been spent to oppose this measure, and the arguments against it
basically claim it would inflict compliance expenses on small businesses.
Opponents also gripe that it leaves intact large agencies’ ability to save
things like academic and criminal records.
The
bottom line is that even if Prop. 24 will not create a perfect world, it’s an
improvement on what we have now.
There’s
little reason for voters to oppose this, as anyone who prefers to be tracked
and categorized can allow it, while people who want out would get a better
route than today’s.
-30-
Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough,
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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