{"id":37631,"date":"2024-06-18T20:07:47","date_gmt":"2024-06-19T00:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eptura.wpengine.com\/?p=37631"},"modified":"2025-02-13T22:07:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T03:07:17","slug":"gdpr-vs-ccpa-compliance-the-5-differences-you-should-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eptura.com\/discover-more\/blog\/gdpr-vs-ccpa-compliance-the-5-differences-you-should-know\/","title":{"rendered":"GDPR vs CCPA compliance: The 5 differences you should know"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you would have told me 20 years ago that I’d be writing about <\/span><\/span>data privacy laws<\/span> inside a tech company, then I never wou<\/span>ld have believed it. But then again, most of us didn’t see all this coming.<\/span><\/p>\n

After decades of the relatively lawless \u201cWild West\u201d of the internet, we\u2019ve finally entered a welcome period of legal reformation. We’ve even arrived at this point where we’re comparing two different data privacy laws<\/strong>: GDPR and CCPA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Global Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)<\/a> went into action on May 25, 2018, effectively redefining the entire landscape of how online user data is to be handled. Then, at the beginning of last year, a new set of regulations, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)<\/a>, went live, causing some businesses to begin to worry.<\/p>\n

While that\u2019s to be expected, we\u2019ll start with the good news first.<\/p>\n

The good news about CCPA compliance<\/h2>\n

If you’ve already finished the careful process of adapting to the stringent data privacy regulations set out by the European Union (EU), then you might be wondering how the CCPA is different from the GDPR. Will this new policy require you to shift your data privacy practices all over again?<\/p>\n

Although the GDPR and CCPA are different from one another in some notable ways, the CCPA is essentially a less strict <\/span>version of the GDPR. (Kinda like how my mother was the strict one growing up, and my dad was the CCPA to her GDPR).<\/p>\n

Meaning, if your business is already aligned with the GDPR, then maintaining CCPA compliance shouldn\u2019t be too much of a hassle.<\/p>\n

Still, to ensure no violations occur, it\u2019s essential for businesses prioritizing regulatory compliance to understand the practical differences that exist between them.<\/p>\n

Some background on the current shift in data privacy laws\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The GDPR protects every EU citizen from having their personal information collected and used without their consent\u2014regardless of whether it’s online or in-person.<\/p>\n

\"EU_Map_GDPR\"<\/p>\n

Thus, companies from around the world have been forced to alter their data privacy practices accordingly.<\/p>\n

As some predicted, this has also inspired somewhat of a positive chain reaction across international data policies.<\/span> As other countries continue depending on business with the EU (who accounted for 16.3% of U.S. exports in 2019<\/a>), many governments are finding it best to simply adopt their own GDPR-style set of data privacy laws<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how California followed suit in 2020 with the CCPA, which was officially enforced<\/a> on July 1 by the California Attorney General. This moment marked a great milestone in the state data privacy legislation and possibly the first step towards a comprehensive federal law in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"California_CCPA\"<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019ve introduced two leading players – <\/span><\/span>GDPR and CCPA<\/span> – <\/span>in the data privacy arena, let\u2019s discuss what we know so far in terms of these five differences:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Who they affect<\/li>\n
  2. The types of data protected<\/li>\n
  3. What actions constitute data collecting, selling, and processing<\/li>\n
  4. The information that must be provided to data subjects<\/li>\n
  5. The penalties involved<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The 5 key differences between the GDPR and CCPA<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    1. Who they affect<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    The GDPR\u2019s laws apply to businesses (and their websites) of every kind.<\/p>\n

    From eCommerce businesses to the webpages of non-profit organizations, to the websites of public institutions – any entity that deals with personal data from the EU must comply with the GDPR or invite costly legal repercussions. This also includes implications for GDPR and visitor management.<\/p>\n

    While the GDPR protects all \u201cdata subjects\u201d (the identifiable people to which personal data belongs) regardless of their residence or citizenship status, the CCPA\u2019s protections are limited to individual data subjects that legally reside in California.<\/p>\n

    Moreover, CCPA only affects for-profit entities whose business meets at least one of the following characteristics:<\/p>\n