In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that impacted roughly 87 million Facebook users, California lawmakers have quickly pushed through privacy legislation that could become a standard for how U.S. banks handle customer information.1 The state recently passed AB 375, “The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018,” or CCPA, which outlines a series of mandates that dictate how broad categories of banks — and others who handle consumers’ personal information — must treat and store the data of tens of millions of Californians.2 

CCPA is the brainchild of “semi-retired” San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart, who sank more than $1 million into a Bay Area advocacy group.3 Mactaggart first became concerned about privacy after he spoke to a Google engineer at a cocktail party who reportedly told him: “If people knew what we knew about them, they’d be freaked out.” 

The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1, 2020. However, officials have already agreed to make amendments to the act when the legislature reconvenes in August.