Senate OKs Consumer Privacy Bill
SACRAMENTO — Without debate, the Senate on Thursday approved a potentially far-reaching bill that would require businesses to tell customers that they have released information about them to marketers in the past or plan to in the future.
Upon a customer's demand, businesses would have to identify the actual or likely sources of the released information during the past year, provide copies of the documents and reveal who received them and when. Plans to release such information would also be subject to disclosure.
The bill, SB 27, by Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) was sent to the Assembly on a 26-13 vote. She had scarcely presented the bill when President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) ordered it put to a vote without questions or debate.
It was sponsored by the California Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization, and opposed by insurance companies, banks and direct marketers.
Figueroa said consumer advocates say that if the proposal becomes law, it will be the toughest of its kind in the country. It would apply to third-party businesses and not to affiliates, subsidiaries or other members of a company's family of businesses.
Opponents have argued that they already operate under adequate privacy protection restrictions and are bracing for expected additional restraints this session. They said the bill would burden them with new regulatory costs and expose them to private lawsuits for damages, civil penalties and attorney fees.
California consumers complain that they are overwhelmed by unwanted advertising solicitations, but are unaware that the sales pitches probably are the result of business relationships they already have with other companies, Figueroa said.
Figueroa has said consumers not only are "powerless to stop such invasions of privacy, they do not even know whether and to what extent it is taking place," in part, because of increasingly sophisticated technology.
Backers of the legislation, one of many consumer privacy bills working their way through the Legislature, argue that for customers to make informed decisions on which companies to do business with, they should know how those businesses shield or disclose personal information.
In other action Thursday, the Senate approved the following bills and sent them to the Assembly:
