Privacy as a Means to Create Brand Trust

My prior blog posts discussed the triggers that will determine which businesses will be obligated to abide by the terms of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), collectively referred to as the “CCPA”, the potential private causes of action under the CCPA, and details of the California Privacy Protection Agency. These posts can be found here:

The Implications of the California Privacy Rights Act to Non-Californian Companies Part 1
The Implications of the California Privacy Rights Act to Non-California Companies Part 2
The Implications of the California Privacy Rights Act to Non-Ccalifornia Companies Part 3

Businesses may view the CCPA and other state privacy laws as an unjustified burden but these laws reflect the wishes of Americans to have greater control of their personal information as evidenced in a 2019 Pew Research poll which found 75% of American adults thought there should be more government regulation of what companies can do with individual personal data. See here.  Given the importance of privacy to Americans businesses must embrace the requirements of these laws to maintain the trust of their customers.

The new privacy laws can be daunting and overwhelming to businesses, particularly to those that do not have an in-house legal department because of the time and effort needed to achieve compliance when  personnel and resources are already in short supply.  However, instead of viewing privacy compliance as a burden [and ignore them], businesses should view these requirements as an opportunity to establish trust with their customers whether they are individual consumers or other businesses.

For example, a small to midsized company in the business of offering vendor services to much larger corporations should have a robust privacy policy and compliance program and structure.  This structure will make it easier for its potential client to trust them with their customer data and l facilitate the onboarding of the smaller company as a vendor.  Thus, the prior investment in privacy compliance will allow the business to focus on it core competency.

Further, having a robust privacy compliance regime will also enhance a company’s brand.  People are worried about their personal information being used by bad actors.  If a business has a privacy structure in place it will differentiate itself from its competitors and will gain trust and loyalty from its customers.

Privacy compliance should be at the forefront of any business whether big or small and those without privacy departments should work with their outside counsel in order to create appropriate and up to date  policies aligned with current laws and best practices.  Outside counsel can also assist businesses in finding the best software providers to meet their compliance needs.

Let Us Help

If you are a business  that needs assistance with data privacy compliance please contact one of our data protection attorneys Colin O’Brien at cobrien@llflegal.com, John Ambrogi at jambrogi@llflegal.com Brian LeVay blevay@llflegal.com or Avery Buffa abuffa@llflegal.com if you have any questions or comments.