CCPA and GDPR: The Data Center Pitfalls of the 'Right to be Forgotten'

The new set of privacy laws that went into effect in California on January 1 affects companies in and outside of the state – across the US and even around the world. A somewhat similar set of rules went into effect in Europe in 2018. Its effects are also felt well beyond European borders, by all companies above a certain size that provide services to Europeans.

For the most part, these laws are designed to protect individual consumers’ privacy. Both the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) include the "right to be forgotten." It entitles every consumer to request that a company delete all the information it has collected about them, with a few exceptions, such as cases where the data needs to be retained to comply with other requirements.

If IP addresses are collected for cybersecurity purposes, for example, to ensure that only legitimate users are accessing data and systems, the information falls under one of the nine exceptions to this provision of the CCPA.

In most companies, it will be up to the individual business units, with the help of IT, legal, and marketing, to manage collection of consumer data and create processes to delete it on request. Does this mean data center managers are off the hook and can ignore CCPA?

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