The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is a California law that allows residents of California to know what companies have their data, how it is being used, and to request that the information is removed. Here are a couple of questions/answers regarding how Total Expert is here to help you stay compliant with CCPA.
Why Does it Matter to Total Expert?
Total Expert stores information on behalf of our customers. It is important that we can respond to requests our customers have with compliance to data privacy laws. Since we do not sell or use the information in our system to directly market to contacts in our database unless it is on the customer’s behalf, we are considered a service provider. As a service provider we are a partner in helping our customers remain compliant.
Why Does it Matter for Our customers?
Our customers are responsible for ensuring they are respecting privacy of California residents’ data they collect. Much of the data is already protected under Federal law however California does take the privacy requirements further. In general, as with GDRP when it first went live, there is still a lot of uncertainty around how the state is going to enforce the law.
What is Total Expert Responsible for Doing?
Total Expert is responsible for knowing where our customer’s data is at. We are also responsible for honoring requests from our customers to review or remove data from the system. Should an individual contact Total Expert, we will assist them in finding which institution holds their data and direct them to contact that institution. In a number of cases, the data we have may not be subject to being removed because there is a legitimate business purpose for having the information. It is up to individual institutions to define those requirements and then work with Total Expert to ensure their requirements are being met.
A few things to keep in mind:
- A request for data review or removal can be made by contacting Total Expert Product Support at support@totalexpert.com. The Support team will need the name and email address of the individual for whom the data review or removal request is being made. If an email address is not available, it can be replaced by another identifier such as phone number of physical address. Please be very specific in terms of whether the request is for data review or removal, and if the request for data review, specifics around what data you are requesting.
- The request must come from an Admin to ensure it is following the proper channels on the customer’s side. If a request comes in from someone other than an Admin, Total Expert will direct the person to contact the institution that actually owns the information.
- Please note, if the request is for data removal, once the data is removed, Total Expert does not keep a record of it to prevent it from being entered again. In other words, if the data were to come back from a manual entry or data import, the new record will reside in Total Expert.