New rules and regulations that impact small businesses are introduced almost every year, making it challenging for busy small business owners to keep up with new laws.
To keep you in the know, I turned to David Clark, a trial lawyer and partner at The Clark Law Office. He explains two main issues the legal industry will tackle in 2023.
New Data Privacy Laws
The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) took effect on January 1st. It’s expected to reshape the U.S. data privacy landscape. The CPRA is a beast that is set to make U.S. privacy laws more complicated. This law mandates policies that give consumers the right to access and delete their data to prevent businesses from selling their information. CPRA is expected to take the nation by storm as it’s already been [enacted] by many other states, such as Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia.
However, the law can be a bit confusing because its definition of personal information is broad, and it’s the first of its kind in the country. In the prior California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), consumers had the right to access their personal information and prevent it from being sold. The CPRA, however, extends consumers’ right to request deletion.
And now that the Act has taken effect, the businesses it covers need to extend the same rights to their employees. But it will not apply to personal information collected in job applications. This can become a source of compliance logistical issues, especially for companies that collect large amounts of data from workers.
More Debates on Intellectual Property Law
2023 will likely be a challenging year for tech companies that create generative artificial intelligence (AI) programs. Last year already saw a massive influx of AI tools, including predictive marketing, that endangers consumers’ privacy rights. In particular, AI programs that generate illustrations are considered a violation of U.S. copyright law by artists. There have been repeated efforts to have AI named as an inventor, which the courts have continuously shut down. Questions surrounding its ethics and legality are starting to come up.
There’s a possibility that courts will start looking into this intellectual property issue in 2023. Questions over authorship will be heavily debated in order to define the difference between transformative and infringing, given that a machine is not eligible to become an author per the U.S. Copyright Office.
These unanswered questions are already pushing the law to its limits, so there’s an increased possibility for state and federal-level intellectual property laws to be revisited this year to protect everyone affected by the issue. At the same time, tech companies will likely address the issue by voluntarily giving consumers, particularly creatives, the option to opt-out to minimize the risk of facing liabilities when the law catches up on the issue.
Legal stock image by BCFC/Shutterstock
