Sacramento, CA — TechNet Executive Director for California Courtney Jensen today issued the following statement in response to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra releasing proposed regulations for the California Consumer Privacy Act:

“TechNet looks forward to reviewing and commenting on the regulations released today by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra regarding the California Consumer Privacy Act. We agree with the Attorney General that rulemaking and the legislature should make sure laws do not stifle innovation. It is critical for California’s consumers, businesses, and economy that innovation is able to flourish in our state, which is why we hope these regulations will bring necessary clarifications to the law that were not made during the legislative session, and take seriously the burden of compliance and understanding for businesses and consumers. Given initial compliance with the law is expected to cost $55 billion, the rulemaking process is a critical piece of maintaining innovation in California.”

Key excerpts from “Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment: California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 Regulations,” a study prepared for the California attorney general’s office:

  • “The total cost of initial compliance with the CCPA, which constitutes the vast majority of compliance efforts, is approximately $55 billion. This is equivalent to approximately 1.8% of California Gross State Product in 2018.”
  • “Our preliminary estimate of direct compliance costs is estimated to be $467-$16,454 million over the next decade (2020-30), depending on the number of California businesses coming into compliance.
  • “Small firms are likely to face a disproportionately higher share of compliance costs relative to larger enterprises. Conventional wisdom may suggest that stronger privacy regulations will adversely impact large technology firms that derive the majority of their revenue from personal data, however evidence from the EU suggests the opposite may be true. Over a year after the introduction of the GDPR, concerns regarding its impact on larger firms appear to have been overstated, while many smaller firms have struggled to meet compliance costs.”
  • “For firms that operate within the state of California, the regulation will provide a competitive disadvantage relative to firms that operate only outside of the state. This is purely a reflection of compliance costs as firms that are subject to the regulation will face higher costs than those that are not. The most affected firms are those that have over $25 million in revenue that have competitors of a similar size operating only outside of California.”