A watered-down version of a bill, establishing California as the first state in the nation to adopt European-style privacy protections for its residents, won final approval from state lawmakers last week.
The original version of the bill required information gatherers to obtain a person’s written permission before providing any information about them to third parties. The new version applies only to state-maintained public records.
Gov. Gray Davis is expected to sign the Personal Information and Privacy Protection Act (SB-129), into law within the next 30 days.
The bill also establishes the Office of Privacy Protection within the state Department of Consumer Affairs to work with state agencies to protect the privacy of personal information.
“We think the bill is considerably approved from the original which we thought would be very dangerous to commerce,” said Richard A. Barton, the Direct Marketing Association’s senior vice president, Congressional Matters.
He also said that by eliminating the opt-in provision from the bill California lawmakers “appear to recognize” that both the tradition offering consumers a chance to opt out from having their personal information shared with third parties the self-regulation policies of the DMA and the direct marketing industry are working.
Gov. Davis, in a related privacy development has signed a the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (AB-2729) which prohibits insurance companies in the state from sharing a customer’s personal health information, including medical and genetic histories, with third parties without written authorization.
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