California is home to some of the world’s most prominent data collectors (Facebook, Google). But it has also been at the forefront of the data privacy movement in North America. The CCPA is the U.S’ first taste of stricter controls around collecting and using personal data. And it is set to cause a wave of changes to how companies do business.

What is the CCPA?

CCPA stands for the California Consumer Privacy Act. The CCPA is like the GDPR since it affords consumers greater rights over their data and personal information collected and used by businesses.

Who does the CCPA apply to?

Your business doesn’t have to be located or headquartered in California to be subject to the CCPA. The regulation will apply to any company that has consumers situated in California and meets one or more of the following:

• Has gross annual revenues over US$25 million
• Buys, receives, or sells the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices
• Derives 50 percent or more of annual revenues from selling consumers’ personal information
  
  

What kinds of penalties can be issued for non-compliance?

Financial penalties can be issued. They will be determined the number of records affected.

A non-intentional violation can cost your business up to US$2,500 per record. This jumps to US$7,500 per record if the breach is ruled intentional. Consumers can also file private actions, which could substantially increase the cost of non-compliance.

Software to help you comply with the CCPA
 

Data loss prevention

The Attorney General’s Office can bring a lawsuit for a privacy breach if personal data is mishandled or penetrated while in your organization’s possession. Your teams must have the right protection against unintentional data breaches to always keep personal data secure.

Emailing the wrong person is an easy mistake to make a leading cause of data breaches worldwide. cleanDocs helps stop emails going to the wrong person, keeping sensitive information safe. It uses machine learning algorithms to develop a deep understanding of the user’s email patterns and behavior. It will only alert the user when it detects a possible breach, keeping interruptions to a minimum.

cleanDocs tightly integrates with email systems to clean documents of hidden information and potentially harmful metadata. It protects organizations from accidental information and metadata leaks by reminding users to remove it before files are sent or shared.

PDF redaction is the most surefire way to stop leaks of confidential and personal information. pdfDocs permanently removes the text from the document, so the redaction can’t be reversed or uncovered because it’s no longer in the file.

Use pattern search in pdfDocs to find phone numbers, credit card numbers, email addresses, Social Security Numbers, and more. Then, redact what you need to in an instant.

When you use cleanDocs, you are also protected against redaction errors. cleanDocs will alert you to improper redaction methods before your email is sent, so you have the chance to fix it before it causes a data leak. Once corrected, re-attach your document, remove any sensitive metadata that is present, and Send.

Data discovery

California residents have the right to access the personal data a business collects from them. Companies need to respond to requests around what data they have, where they collected it, how it is being used, and if it is sold to or shared with third parties.

Personal data is included in signed contracts, proofs of ID, scanned documents, and other image-based files that aren’t text searchable.

To respond to consumer requests to see, access, and delete personal information collected by your business, you need to be able to search 100% of the contents of saved files. Otherwise, you risk missing something, which could put you at risk of non-compliance.

contentCrawler finds the files that aren’t searchable, OCRs them, and re-saves them as text-searchable PDFs. It covers legacy documents as well as those newly added. Simply set and forget to experience better search.