How the CPPA can protect Californians’ privacy in the face of AI

February 18, 2025
Blog
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Labor, AI

Privacy is essential to ensuring that people have agency, safety, and dignity in their lives. However, the way that companies are using tech across our economy is threatening that fundamental right. Companies are scraping personal information to make life-changing decisions about everyday people.

Privacy is not just about what data is collected and how; it’s about how that data is used and whether people have insight and control into how that use impacts their lives. People have a right to privacy, and our laws should protect that privacy in the face of new technologies. We need the ability to enforce existing laws in this digital age and close any loopholes that this tech may create.

Right now, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) is discussing updates to existing regulations and proposed regulations that could impact millions of workers and renters. They’re deciding whether or not they’ll update the existing regulations under the California Consumer Privacy Act to include Automated Decision-making Technologies, also known as ADMTs.

We know how intrusive and devastating ADMTs can be for everyday people without the right guardrails. For the last few months, we’ve urged the CPPA Board to update our regulations to meet the privacy concerns of the modern era.  You can read/watch all of our statements here:

The CPPA Board has the chance to ensure that California remains a leader in protecting the rights of our communities in a data-driven economy, as it has before in passing the first U.S. state privacy law that established the agency. Setting the standard in California for consumer privacy and agency in the face of ADMTs will chart a new course for the future of these technologies entirely.

Tomorrow, our SVP of Labor Programs, Tim Newman, will share our final comments with the board before they make their decision. Below are his remarks:

Tim Newman’s comment

Good afternoon. My name is Tim Newman, and I am sharing these comments on behalf of TechEquity. Our organization has previously provided written and public comments regarding CPPA’s draft regulations on multiple occasions. You can find all of these comments posted together on TechEquity.us. 

Throughout our comments and our research, we’ve previously shared with the Board how critical it is to enact policies that protect our communities as emerging technologies intersect with the most consequential areas of the economy for everyday people: where we live and the conditions under which we work. 

California has a historic opportunity to lead the U.S. in establishing critical transparency, disclosure, and validation requirements for ADMTs. But it will require recognizing workers, renters, and other impacted groups as key stakeholders in understanding and managing our datafied society. 

The CCPA was designed to ensure that people in California have the tools necessary to advocate for their rights in the 21st-century data-driven economy. The Board must use this rulemaking process to affirm the intent of the law and balance the industry’s immense power with privacy and data autonomy for Californians. The CPPA is fulfilling its mandate when it recognizes this dynamic and pursues rules such as these that clarify our rights over the personal information businesses collect about us and how we can exercise these rights.

The arguments we’ve heard in public hearings from industry – representing some of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world – are part of a larger effort to block common-sense frameworks to protect Californians’ right to privacy as outlined in the CCPA, including how their personal information is collected, monitored and used to make decisions about them.  

The industry’s arguments are not isolated to this body. We see these same tactics played out in the legislature and we are watching them at their most extreme at the federal level as agencies who are responsible for protecting consumers, labor rights, and anti-discrimination are gutted and dismantled. The industry playbook is clear and we urge the Board to ensure that the cynical and dangerous parts of this strategy do not dictate the outcomes of this rulemaking process.

The reality is that “the proposed regulations strike a good balance between the desire to strengthen consumer privacy and recognition of the importance of the information technology sector to the California economy,” as stated in the CPPA’s Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment. We agree and we look forward to the passage and implementation of these regulations. 

Thank you to the CPPA director, staff, and board for your important work.

You can read the full letter here:

Comment to the CPPA Board Feb 2025Download