Issy Lapowsky reports:
Lawmakers in California have introduced a sweeping privacy bill to the state legislature that would give Californians unprecedented control over their data and rein in the power of their Silicon Valley neighbors.
Introduced by State Assembly member Ed Chau and state senator Robert Hertzberg, the bill would allow California residents to find out what information businesses and data brokers collect about them, where that information comes from, and how it’s shared. It would give people the power to ask for their data to be deleted and to order businesses to stop selling their personal information. It places limits on selling data on users younger than 16 years of age, and prohibits businesses from denying service to users for exercising their rights under the bill.
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Not surprisingly, there’s a lot of lobbying against it, including from tech companies. Marty Swant reports:
The legislation is, in some ways, a compromise between Silicon Valley companies fighting new limits on data collection and privacy advocates that have been promoting a proposed ballot initiative called the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. The act, if approved by the Secretary of State’s office, would be decided on by California voters in November. Organizers say they’ve already received more than 600,000 signatures—considerably more than the 360,000 required by state law to appear on the ballot.
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