Official Arguments (click ▸ to expand)
The world's biggest corporations are collecting deeply personal and private information about all of us. Sadly, our current laws aren’t strong enough to protect us or our families from those who would abuse our most personal information. In 2018, the Legislature enacted the California Consumer Privacy Act. But since then, industry has repeatedly tried to weaken and limit enforcement of this law. Consumers need stronger protections. That's why we've introduced the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, to strengthen current privacy laws. In addition to monitoring our kids, many corporations track us constantly, from gym to office to clinic; they know our friends, jobs, weight, where we eat and how fast we're driving, our private searches and what we look at online. They also track and sell sensitive information like our race, sexual orientation, and religion. We believe we should be in control of our own information, and have the right to stop the use of our most sensitive personal information. OUR PERSONAL INFORMATION—AND OUR CHILDREN'S—IS BEING ABUSED: Giant corporations make billions buying and selling our personal information—apps, phones, and cars sell your location constantly. The California Privacy Rights Act gives you the power to stop businesses tracking you precisely, like selling how many times you go to the gym or fast food restaurants to health insurers—without your knowledge or permission. Worse, these corporations don't keep your information safe. In 2018, there were a whopping 1,244,000,000 data breaches in the U.S., with over 446,000,000 records exposed, leading to massive identity theft. This measure holds big businesses accountable by imposing huge fines if they're negligent and don't keep your or your kids' health information, or Social Security numbers safe. THE CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS ACT WOULD: 1. PROTECT YOUR MOST PERSONAL INFORMATION, by allowing you to prevent businesses from using or sharing sensitive information about your health, finances, race, ethnicity, and precise location; 2. Safeguard young people, TRIPLING FINES for violations involving children’s information; 3. Put new limits on companies' collection and use of our personal information; 4. Establish an enforcement arm—the California Privacy Protection Agency—to defend these rights and hold companies accountable, and extend enforcement including IMPOSING PENALTIES FOR NEGLIGENCE resulting in theft of consumers' emails and passwords. 5. MAKE IT MUCH HARDER TO WEAKEN PRIVACY in California in the future, by preventing special interests and politicians from undermining Californians' privacy rights, while allowing the Legislature to amend the law to further the primary goal of strengthening consumer privacy to better protect you and your children, such as opt-in for use of data, further protections for uniquely vulnerable minors, and greater power for individuals to hold violators accountable. VOTE YES ON PROP. 24 TO SUPPORT THE CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS ACT: California led the nation in enacting privacy rights, but big corporations are spending millions lobbying to weaken our laws. Instead, we need to make California privacy laws stronger. We need to safeguard our privacy protections, and hold corporations accountable when they violate our fundamental rights. For more information, visit: www.caprivacy.org. Please join us and VOTE YES ON PROP. 24. JAMES P. STEYER, CEO Common Sense Media ALICE A. HUFFMAN, President California NAACP CELINE MACTAGGART, Director Californians for Consumer Privacy
Vote NO on Proposition 24 because it was written behind closed doors with input from giant tech corporations that collect and misuse our personal information—while the measure's sponsor rejected almost every suggestion from 11 privacy and consumer rights groups. Proposition 24 reduces privacy protections by severely weakening your rights under current California law. Make no mistake—the privacy of every Californian is at stake! The real winners with Proposition 24 are the biggest social media platforms, giant tech companies and credit reporting corporations who get more freedom to invade the privacy of workers and consumers, and to continue sharing your credit data. Here's what they won't tell you about the 52 pages of fine print: Proposition 24 asks you to approve an Internet "pay for privacy" scheme. Those who don't pay more could get inferior service—bad connections, slower downloads and more pop up ads. It's an electronic version of freeway express lanes for the wealthy and traffic jams for everyone else. Currently, employers can obtain all kinds of personal information about their workers and even job applicants, including things like using a pregnancy tracking app, where you go to worship or if you attend a political protest. Proposition 24 allows employers to continue secretly gathering this information for more years to come, overriding a new law that lets workers know what sensitive private information their bosses have beginning January 1, 2021. Under California law, your privacy rights follow you wherever you go. But with Proposition 24, the minute you travel out of state with a phone, wearable device, or computer, big tech companies are allowed to capture the health, financial, and other confidential information you stored on your device. You can set web browsers and cell phones to send a signal to each website you visit and app you use to stop selling your personal data, so you don't have to think about it each time. Proposition 24 would allow companies to disregard those instructions and shift the burden to you to notify each and every website and app individually to protect your data. Proposition 24's new enforcement agency sounds good, but when tech corporations get caught violating your privacy, all they have to do is cooperate with the agency and their only penalty could be a slap on the wrist. California's new privacy law just took effect this year. Smaller businesses spent a lot of money to comply with the new regulations. Before we even know how this new law is working, Proposition 24 rewrites it, forcing smaller businesses to absorb even more costs at a time that the economic slowdown has many businesses on the verge of closing their doors. Proposition 24 was written to accommodate big social media platforms and the Internet and technology companies that spend tens of millions of dollars a year to lobby government at all levels to avoid laws that hurt their profits. Proposition 24 is a bonanza for them—and a big step back for consumer privacy. Please Vote NO on Proposition 24. www.CaliforniansForRealPrivacy.org TRACY ROSENBERG, President Californians for Privacy Now RICHARD HOLOBER, President Consumer Federation of California DOLORES HUERTA, Labor and Civil Rights Leader
🚫 San Francisco Chronicle
"If the decision on Prop. 24 were merely about the concept — stopping companies from collecting and exploiting personal information about us without our permission or often without our knowledge — it would be an easy call. But this is a complex, legalistic 52-page initiative crafted behind the scenes, including participation of the companies that are the supposed targets of regulation. It should be evaluated on its details, not merely its good intentions. ... And here is one more thing for voters to consider: If Prop. 24 really were as restrictive and airtight as advertised, is there any doubt that those who are exploiting our personal information as a commodity would be pouring tens of millions into defeating it? Their silence is telling."
🤐 The San Diego Union-Tribune
No stance published.
🚫 American Civil Liberties Union SoCal
"Vote to reject a fake privacy law that benefits big companies and harms the privacy of vulnerable communities.
Prop 24 is a fake privacy law. Instead of protections, it requires people to jump through more hoops and adds anti privacy loopholes: exceptions for big business, less protection for workers, and more power for police. Prop 24 benefits big tech and corporate interests but leaves vulnerable communities the least protected. Vote NO on Prop 24 to make protecting consumer information the default. Privacy is a right, not a privilege."
✅ Los Angeles Times
"We could sink deeply into the history and the behind-the-scenes drama, but in the end, the questions for voters are whether Proposition 24 would make privacy protections stronger, whether it goes far enough to make a meaningful difference, and whether it would enable the state to provide even better protections in the future. The answer to all three is yes. Although California’s current privacy law is the strongest in the country, it has many shortcomings. Its limits apply only to the sale of data, so some sites have circumvented them by claiming they’re not selling personal information, they’re merely sharing it with partners. That’s one of several glaring loopholes that big, data-hoovering sites and platforms such as Google, Facebook and Spotify have exploited."
🚫 The Mercury News
"It’s simply the wrong way to try to go about settling an immensely complex issue. Vote no on Proposition 24. ... Voters should reject Prop. 24. Let’s wait and see how effective the state’s new online law works. If it needs change, give the Legislature a chance to fix any flaws before taking another ballot measure to the people."
🚫 Orange County Register
"The last thing California needs is another state regulatory agency that burdens businesses, especially now, as they adapt to an increasingly online model. ... That won’t bother the tech giants or other large companies, such as banks and insurers. But for small and midsize companies, the legal bills associated with regulatory compliance for every technological upgrade would be strangling. Invention could turn into stagnation. The creative energy that has rushed new products and services into the hands of consumers would be chilled. Never again will tech giants be threatened by a start-up company in somebody’s garage."
🚫 The Desert Sun
“The changes that would be made via Proposition 24 would delete the ability of businesses to correct a violation and avoid financial sanctions. Instead of the state attorney general being the enforcement body, the initiative would authorize the Legislature to spend $10 million per year for a new regulatory agency, staffed by political appointees, to draft regulations for a constantly changing marketplace, police firms that operate within and impose fines for violations….
…Businesses have only just begun trying to coordinate their practices with the Legislature’s CCPA. Throwing a new, dense measure at them, with the real possibility of further changes by a new bureaucracy, is harshly unfair. We should give that law the chance to work and be tweaked, as potentially needed, before shifting gears so abruptly.”
🤷 California Democratic Party
"Would expand or amend the provisions of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018."
🚫 Republican Party
"No on Prop 24 – Costly, Deceptive Privacy Scheme
Prop 24 creates a new, unaccountable state bureaucracy with vast power over Californians’ personal information. This will cost Californians more money for the exchange of less privacy."