digital privacy

The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) passed as a ballot initiative in the 2020 general election. The new consumer privacy law is actually an amendment of an earlier law: the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The major differences between the CPRA and the CCPA involve the level of protection afforded to consumers. The CCPA established a baseline for protecting consumer privacy rights, while the CPRA significantly expands on those protections by giving consumers additional rights.

Consumer protection has been of paramount importance to both lawmakers and residents in California for a long time, resulting in extremely strong laws that limit what companies can do with customer data and personal information. One of these laws addressing digital privacy concerns is the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), a new consumer privacy law that recently went into effect. The data protection law was passed by California residents through a referendum on the ballot in the 2020 general election.

A CIPA lawsuit was recently filed against Nationwide Mutual Insurance for illegal wiretapping and invasion of privacy, and now a federal judge in California has ruled that the case can proceed to trial. The U.S. District Court judge issued the ruling in response to a motion to dismiss the wiretapping claims under Section 631 of CIPA, or the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

It is important for consumers who interact with businesses online to have a solid understanding of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) and website wiretapping. When you have a conversation with someone on the phone or via the computer, there is usually a reasonable expectation that the conversation will remain between the two parties. But what happens when what you believed to be a private conversation was actually being wiretapped, surveilled, and/or recorded by the other party?

Arlo Home Security System is being sued for invasion of privacy. The consumer protection attorneys at Tauler Smith LLP recently filed the lawsuit on behalf of a California resident who used the company’s website: www.arlo.com/. Specifically, Arlo is accused of engaging in the unauthorized collection, storage, and sharing of the personal information of its customers. Arlo has also been accused of allowing a third-party company to secretly intercept and monitor the online chat conversations of website visitors without their knowledge or consent.

Amazon recently reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), agreeing to pay $31 million in civil penalties for consumer privacy violations associated with the company’s Alexa voice assistant devices and Ring doorbell cameras. The DOJ alleged that Amazon engaged in a number of unreasonable privacy practices, ultimately resulting in an FTC settlement involving Amazon’s Alexa, Ring security cameras, and privacy laws.

In a highly anticipated ruling, a federal judge in California recently denied Goodyear’s motion to dismiss wiretapping claims based on their use of third-party chat applications hosted on their website. This ruling allows the Goodyear Tires wiretapping lawsuit to proceed. The complaint alleges that when users visit www.goodyear.com/ and use the website chat feature, they share personal data in communications that are unlawfully recorded and transcribed.

California has some of the strongest consumer privacy laws in the country, and companies that violate those laws could face serious legal repercussions. For example, state residents have a right to privacy under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). These privacy rights exist when a prospective customer talks to a salesperson or customer service rep on the phone, communicates via an online chat feature, or fills out a form on a website.

It is quite common these days for businesses to monitor and record phone calls with customers, whether it’s to ensure that orders are accurate, to review employee interactions, or for some other reason. At the same time, new technologies have made it easier than ever to eavesdrop on private communications. Unfortunately, this has resulted in some companies going too far by invading the privacy of customers.