EFF Urges Calif. Enforcers to Tackle Data Brokers Failing to Respond to Requests
Enforcers should ensure that registered data brokers improve their performance when consumers request information from them about their data, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said in a blog post Monday. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants consumers the legal right to request access to, or deletion of, their data.
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EFF cited a June study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, that "manually submitted" a data request to all 543 of the state's registered data brokers. More than 43% of the brokers failed to respond, the researchers reported, which violates the CCPA (see 2507290054).
"That’s more than four in ten companies from an industry that makes its money from collecting and selling our personal information, ignoring one of our most basic rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act: the right to know what information companies have about us," blogged Hayley Tsukayama, EFF's associate director of legislative activism.
"This is particularly galling because it’s not easy to file a request in the first place," she added. "There is no streamlined process for these time-consuming requests," and "people often won’t have the time or energy to see them through." Yet when a consumer makes the effort to file a request, some data brokers "still feel just fine ignoring the law and their customers completely."
Tsukayama suggested that consumers file a complaint with the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) and the state attorney general's office when a data broker ignores their data-access request. She also urged the CPPA and the AG office to investigate the study's findings and exercise their authority over data brokers.
"Without consequences to back up our rights, as this research illustrates, many companies will bank on not getting caught, or factor weak slaps on the wrist into the cost of doing business," Tsukayama said.