CCPA-Compliant Privacy Policy: Best Practices & Free Template

Contents

Introduction

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a comprehensive privacy law that went into effect on January 1, 2020. It is designed to give California consumers more control over their personal information and how it is collected, used, and shared by businesses. As a small business owner, it is important for you to be aware of the CCPA and how it may affect your business.

The CCPA applies to businesses that collect the personal information of California consumers, and it applies to a wide range of activities, including the sale of personal information and the use of cookies and other tracking technologies. In order to comply with the CCPA, you may need to make changes to your current privacy policy and your data collection and processing practices.

In this article, I will provide an overview of the CCPA and offer tips on how to update your privacy policy and ensure compliance with the new law. I will also discuss the importance of training your employees on the CCPA and review your data collection and processing practices. By taking these steps, you can protect your business and your customers’ privacy rights. At the end of the article, we have included a sample privacy policy template that you can use as a starting point for creating your own CCPA-compliant privacy policy.

II. Determine if the CCPA Applies to Your Business

The CCPA applies to businesses that meet certain criteria, including:

Having gross annual revenues in excess of $25 million
Buying, receiving, selling, or sharing the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers, households, or devices
Deriving 50% or more of its annual revenues from selling consumers’ personal information

If your business meets one or more of these criteria, then it is subject to the CCPA. Even if your business does not meet these criteria, you may still be subject to the CCPA if you collect the personal information of California consumers and sell that information to third parties.

It is important to carefully review the CCPA and determine if it applies to your business. If you are unsure whether the CCPA applies to you, it is a good idea to seek the advice of a business lawyer or legal advisor. Failing to comply with the CCPA can result in fines and legal action, so it is important to be proactive in understanding your obligations under the law.

III. Review and Update Your Current Privacy Policy

Once you have determined that the CCPA applies to your business, the next step is to review and update your current privacy policy. A privacy policy is a statement or a legal document that outlines the ways in which a business collects, uses, and protects the personal information of its customers or clients.

Under the CCPA, a privacy policy must include certain information, such as:

A list of the categories of personal information that the business has collected about consumers in the past 12 months
The categories of sources from which the personal information is collected
The business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information
The categories of third parties with whom the business shares personal information
The specific pieces of personal information that the business has collected about consumers in the past 12 months

It is important to review your current privacy policy to ensure that it includes all of the required information and meets the standards set forth by the CCPA. If you need to make updates to your privacy policy, it is a good idea to seek the advice of a business lawyer or legal advisor to ensure that it is accurate and compliant with the law.

Once you have reviewed and updated your privacy policy, it is important to make it easily accessible to your customers. You should include a link to your privacy policy on your website and make it available to customers upon request. You should also consider providing a copy of your privacy policy to your employees so that they are aware of your company’s policies and practices with regard to customer data.

IV. Train Your Employees on the CCPA

In order to ensure compliance with the CCPA, it is important to train your employees on the new law and how it affects the way they handle customer data. This includes educating them on the requirements of the CCPA, as well as your company’s policies and procedures for complying with the law.

Here are a few tips for effectively training your employees on the CCPA:

Make sure that your training materials are clear and easy to understand. Use plain language and provide examples to illustrate key points.
Include information on the types of personal information that are covered by the CCPA and how to handle such information.
Explain the rights of California consumers under the CCPA, such as the right to opt out of the sale of their personal information and the right to request access to and deletion of their personal information.
Provide guidance on how to handle customer inquiries and requests related to the CCPA.
Emphasize the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of customer data and the consequences of failing to do so.

By training your employees on the CCPA, you can help ensure that your business is in compliance with the law and that you are meeting the needs and expectations of your customers.

V. Review Your Data Collection and Processing Practices

In addition to updating your privacy policy and training your employees on the CCPA, it is important to review your data collection and processing practices to ensure compliance with the new law. This includes reviewing the types of personal information you collect, the sources from which you collect this information, and the purposes for which you collect and use it.

Here are a few steps you can take to review your data collection and processing practices:

Review the types of personal information you collect from your customers. Make sure that you are only collecting information that is necessary for the purposes of your business and that you have obtained the necessary consent from customers to collect this information.
Review the sources from which you collect personal information. Make sure that you are collecting information from reputable sources and that you have taken appropriate steps to protect the confidentiality and security of this information.
Review the purposes for which you collect and use personal information. Make sure that you have a legitimate business reason for collecting and using this information and that you are not using it for any unauthorized or inappropriate purposes.

By reviewing your data collection and processing practices, you can ensure that you are in compliance with the CCPA and that you are protecting the privacy rights of your customers. If you need to make changes to your practices in order to comply with the CCPA, it is a good idea to seek the advice of a business lawyer or legal advisor.

VI. Conclusion

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a comprehensive privacy law that went into effect on January 1, 2020. As a small business owner, it is important for you to be aware of the CCPA and how it may affect your business. In order to comply with the CCPA, you may need to make changes to your current privacy policy and your data collection and processing practices.

To ensure compliance with the CCPA, you should:

Determine if the CCPA applies to your business
Review and update your current privacy policy
Train your employees on the CCPA
Review your data collection and processing practices

By taking these steps, you can protect your business and your customers’ privacy rights. At the end of this article, I have included a sample privacy policy template that you can use as a starting point for creating your own CCPA-compliant privacy policy.

I hope this article has been helpful in understanding the requirements of the CCPA and how to ensure compliance.

VII. Template Privacy Policy

Here is a sample privacy policy template that includes a section on California residents and California laws:

PRIVACY POLICY

Last updated: [Date]

Thank you for choosing to be a part of our community at [Company Name]. We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about our policy, or our practices with regards to your personal information, please contact us at [Email].

When you visit our website [Insert URL], and use our services, you trust us with your personal information. We take your privacy very seriously. In this privacy policy, we seek to explain to you in the clearest way possible what information we collect, how we use it and what rights you have in relation to it. We hope you take some time to read through it carefully, as it is important. If there are any terms in this privacy policy that you do not agree with, please discontinue use of our Sites and our services.

This privacy policy applies to all information collected through our website (such as [Insert URL]), and/or any related services, sales, marketing or events (we refer to them collectively in this privacy policy as the “Services”).

Please read this privacy policy carefully as it will help you make informed decisions about sharing your personal information with us.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?
HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?
WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?
HOW DO WE HANDLE YOUR SOCIAL LOGINS?
DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?
WHAT IS OUR STANCE ON THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES?
HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?
DO WE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM MINORS?
WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?
CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES
DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY RIGHTS?
DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?
HOW CAN YOU CONTACT US ABOUT THIS POLICY?

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

Personal information you disclose to us. In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when expressing an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and services, when participating in activities on the Services (such as posting messages in our online forums or entering competitions, contests or giveaways) or otherwise contacting us.

The personal information that we collect depends on the context of your interactions with us and the Services, the choices you make and the products and features you use. The personal information we collect can include the following:

Publicly Available Personal Information. We collect first name, maiden name, last name, and nickname; email addresses; and other similar data.
Credentials. We collect passwords, password hints, and similar security information used for authentication and account access.

Payment Data. We collect data necessary to process your payment if you make purchases, such as your payment instrument number (such as a credit card number), and the security code associated with your payment instrument.
All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete and accurate, and you must notify us of any changes to such personal information.

Information collected from third parties. In Short: We may collect information about you from third parties.

We may receive information about you from third party sources such as public databases, social media platforms, third-party data providers, and our joint marketing partners. We may also receive information about you from our affiliates or business partners.

Information collected automatically. In Short: We automatically collect certain information when you visit our Services.

We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use or navigate the Services. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Services and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Services, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.

HOW DO WE USE YOUR INFORMATION?

In Short: We process your information for purposes based on legitimate business interests, the fulfillment of our contract with you, compliance with our legal obligations, and/or your consent.

We use personal information collected via our Services for a variety of business purposes described below. We process your personal information for these purposes in reliance on our legitimate business interests, in order to enter into or perform a contract with you, with your consent, and/or for compliance with our legal obligations. We indicate the specific processing grounds we rely on next to each purpose listed below.

We use the information we collect or receive:

To facilitate account creation and logon process. If you choose to link your account with us to a third-party account (such as an account with Facebook or Google), we use the information you allowed us to collect from those third parties to facilitate account creation and logon process for the performance of the contract. See the section below headed “HOW DO WE HANDLE YOUR SOCIAL LOGINS” for further information.

To send you marketing and promotional communications. We and/or our third party marketing partners may use the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes, if this is in accordance with your marketing preferences. You can opt-out of our marketing emails at any time (see the “WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS” below).
To send administrative information to you. We may use your personal information to send you product, service and new feature information and/or information about changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.
To process your requests. We may use your personal information to process and respond to your requests, such as to send you newsletters or to fulfill your orders for products or services.
For other Business Purposes. We may use your information for other Business Purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Services, products, marketing and your experience. We may use and store this information in aggregated and anonymized form so that it is not associated with individual end users and does not include personal information. We will not use identifiable personal information without your consent.

WILL YOUR INFORMATION BE SHARED WITH ANYONE?

In Short: We only share information with your consent, to comply with laws, to protect your rights, or to fulfill business obligations.

We may process or share data based on the following legal basis:

Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information in a specific purpose.
Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:

Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
Third-Party Advertisers. We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit the Services. These companies may use information about your visits to our Website(s) and other websites that are contained in web cookies and other tracking technologies in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your information with third parties who perform services on our behalf, such as website hosting, data analysis, payment processing, order fulfillment, infrastructure provision, IT services, customer service, email delivery, auditing and other services.

Business Partners. We may share your information with our business partners to offer you certain products, services or promotions.
Affiliates. We may share your information with our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this privacy policy. Affiliates include our parent company and any subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that we control or that are under common control with us.
Other Users. When you share personal information (for example, by posting comments, contributions or other content to our Services) or otherwise interact with public areas of the Services, such personal information may be viewed by all users and may be publicly distributed outside the Services in perpetuity.

HOW DO WE HANDLE YOUR SOCIAL LOGINS?

Our Services offer you the ability to register and login using your third-party social media account details (like your Facebook or Twitter logins). Where you choose to do this, we will receive certain profile information about you from your social media provider. The profile Information we receive may vary depending on the social media provider concerned, but will often include your name, e-mail address, friends list, profile picture as well as other information you choose to make public.

We will use the information we receive only for the purposes that are described in this privacy policy or that are otherwise made clear to you on the Services. Please note that we do not control, and are not responsible for, other uses of your personal information by your third-party social media provider. We recommend that you review their privacy policy to understand how they collect, use and share your personal information, and how you can set your privacy preferences on their sites and apps.

DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?

In Short: We may use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect and store your information.

We may use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to access or store information. Specific information about how we use such technologies and how you can refuse certain cookies is set out in our Cookie Policy.

WHAT IS OUR STANCE ON THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES?

Our Services may contain links to external sites that are not operated by us. Please be aware that we have no control over the content and practices of these third-party sites, and cannot accept responsibility or liability for their respective privacy policies.

You are free to refuse our request for your personal information, with the understanding that we may be unable to provide you with some of your desired services.

Your continued use of our Services will be regarded as acceptance of our practices around privacy and personal information. If you have any questions about how we handle user data and personal information, feel free to contact us.

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?

In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy policy unless otherwise required by law.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting or other legal requirements). No purpose in this policy will require us keeping your personal information for longer than [36] months.

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

DO WE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM MINORS?

In Short: We do not knowingly collect data from or market to children under 18 years of age.

We do not knowingly solicit data from or market to children under 18 years of age. By using the Services, you represent that you are at least 18 or that you are the parent or guardian of such a minor and consent to such minor dependent’s use of the Services. If we learn that personal information from users less than 18 years of age has been collected, we will deactivate the account and take reasonable measures to promptly delete such data from our records. If you become aware of any data we have collected from children under age 18, please contact us at [Email].

WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?

In Short: You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time.

If you are resident in the European Economic Area and you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you also have the right to complain to your local data protection supervisory authority. You can find their contact details here: [Insert link to supervisory authority website].

If you have any questions or comments about your privacy rights, you may email us at [Email].

You may review, change, or terminate your account at any time.

CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES

Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems and mobile applications include a Do-Not-Track (“DNT”) feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals or any other mechanism that automatically communicates your choice not to be tracked online. If a standard for online tracking is adopted that we must follow in the future, we will inform you about that practice in a revised version of this privacy policy.

DO CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS HAVE SPECIFIC PRIVACY RIGHTS?

In Short: Yes, if you are a resident of California, you are granted specific rights regarding access to your personal information.

California Civil Code Section 1798.83, also known as the “Shine The Light” law, permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes and the names and addresses of all third parties with which we shared personal information in the immediately preceding calendar year. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact information provided below.

If you are under 18 years of age, reside in California, and have a registered account with the Services, you have the right to request removal of unwanted data that you publicly post on the Services. To request removal of such data, please contact us using the contact information provided below, and include the email address associated with your account and a statement that you reside in California. We will make sure the data is not publicly displayed on the Services, but please be aware that the data may not be completely or comprehensively removed from our systems.

DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS POLICY?

In Short: Yes, we will update this policy as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Revised” date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy policy, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this privacy policy frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.