Microsoft have announced that they will adapt the principles of the new California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on the first day of the New Year.
Ahead of coming into full force in January 2020, Microsoft took the bold step in announcing that it would “honor” the CCPA law throughout the whole United States. This follows a similar decision in Europe where it adapted the GDPR principles globally to its business.
Microsoft’s announcement is a big deal for the tech industry as it signals just how seriously big business is taking data protection. With CCPA only being enforced in California, Microsoft have shown that as a company it wants to do more for data protection, and in fact, praised CCPA as good news. Chief Privacy Officer Julie Brill said in a blog post that the CCPA is “an important step toward providing people with more robust control over their data in the United States.”
CCPA will have a far reaching impact on businesses, especially those that are incorporated in California, but serve users nationally and internationally. With data laws overlapping in different states, and over in Europe, it’s making more sense for businesses to adapt the strictest data requirements across their entire digital operations. This will ensure that they are ready for the upcoming laws currently being drafted in a number of different states, and help them to get their systems up-to-speed and compliant.
With that compliance also comes the need of making sure that technology architecture is set up in a way that safely stores and removes data once it is no longer in use. Especially for businesses that handle personal information across states, it’s important to implement a data protection policy that tries to apply the principles of GDPR, CCPA and other laws so that risks are minimized.
For companies that want to step up their commitment to protecting their customer data, they can choose the option of buying professional degaussing equipment to fully erase old data from hard drives that will no longer be used in newer systems.