California Businesses Gain Clarity on Consumer Data Requests

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s first opinion on the state’s consumer privacy law will likely impact how companies respond to consumer requests for “inferences” that businesses generate to sell targeted products and services, attorneys say.

The opinion under the California Consumer Privacy Act lays out that consumers have a right to access inferences, regardless of whether those are generated by a company’s data or data from another source. That right to know includes inferences made from publicly available information.

A business could make an inference that a consumer is a Los Angeles sports fan, for example, after seeing that she ...