The California Privacy Rights Act, the ballot initiative aimed to regulate large companies that collect large amounts of data, has enough signatures to be considered to be on the ballot during the November general election. However, in-house counsel and their companies have a while before they need to become concerned with its implications.

Californians for Consumer Privacy, the group headed by real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart, announced that 900,000 voters have signed on to have the CPRA go to the ballot in November.

Mactaggart said in an interview on Monday the organization is in the process of having those signatures verified by the counties. The ballot initiative will then have to be approved by the California Secretary of State. He said that process should be completed in the next couple of months.

However, even if the initiative gets approved to be on the ballot during the general election in November, in-house counsel have plenty of time to figure out how to comply with it. Right now, there are more pressing matters legal departments and their firms have to consider with regard to privacy in California.

"We are more concerned with the July 1 enforcement date of the CCPA," Natalie Prescott, an associate at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo in San Diego, told Corporate Counsel.

She explained that attorney general Xavier Becerra has not yet published the final guidelines for the CCPA but intends on keeping the July 1 enforcement date despite businesses asking for more time because of work arrangements necessitated by the new coronavirus.

"All of the commentary that I am seeing indicates it [CPRA] is more likely to pass," Prescott explained.

Further, the CPRA wouldn't take effect until 2023. During that time, the California state government would have to create a new agency, the California Privacy Protection Agency, to oversee and enforce data privacy. The CPRA would also give California citizens a right to which would force businesses to stop using sensitive personal information without consent and triple fines for collecting and selling children's private information.

Mactaggart noted that he is facing less opposition from big corporations than he did when he introduced the CCPA as a ballot measure in 2018.

"I think the world has moved on a lot over the past couple of years and it is harder to oppose privacy policies," Mactaggart said.

According to data provided by Californians for Consumer Privacy, 88% of California voters, of 777 surveyed, said they would vote in favor of a law that expands privacy protections for personal information.

He also said the CPRA would decrease the number of businesses covered under the law.

"We go back to the threshold of covering companies that process over 100,000 pieces of information a year," Mactaggart said.

Right now the CCPA covers businesses that process 50,000 pieces of information a year. Mactaggart said the CCPA originally covered businesses that process 100,000 pieces of information a year, but that was changed when it went to the Legislature instead of being voted on for the general election.

"Fewer businesses are covered [under the CPRA]. My intention all along with this was to regulate the businesses that cause problems," Mactaggart explained.