California Enacts Four New Privacy Laws

On September 28th and 29th, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger approved four laws further extending privacy protection in California. These laws address spyware, security obligations with respect to personal information, collection of medical information for direct marketing purposes, and protection of social security numbers.

The Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act ("CPACSA"), Senate Bill 1436, is the first regulation of spyware in California and one of the first such anti-spyware laws in the country. "Spyware" refers to computer programs that perform functions on a computer often without the owner’s knowledge. Once introduced, spyware may disable or change security settings on the computer or monitor the user’s keystrokes to obtain passwords, account numbers and many other types of information.