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Jonathan Tam

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Jonathan Tam is a licensed attorney in California and Ontario. He focuses on privacy, advertising, intellectual property, content moderation and consumer protection laws. He is passionate about helping clients achieve their commercial objectives while managing legal risks associated with activities involving data, information technology and media. Jonathan regularly writes about information technology and privacy, and is the Vice Chair of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Law Section of the Bar Association of San Francisco. He has completed secondments at a global payment services provider based in London, England and a world-leading tech company based in Silicon Valley. He joined Baker McKenzie as a summer associate in 2012 and has also worked in the Firm's Toronto office.

On 1 January 2023, the California Consumer Privacy Act as revised by the California Privacy Rights Act will take effect fully in the job applicant and employment context.
And with respect to job applicants and personnel, businesses subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act will be required to (i) issue further revised privacy notices, (ii) be ready to respond to data subject requests, (iii) have determined if they sell or share for cross context behavioral advertising personal information about them, and (iv) have determined if they use or disclose sensitive personal information about them outside of specific purposes. If employers sell, share for cross-context behavioral advertising, or use or disclose sensitive personal information outside of limited purposes, numerous additional compliance obligations apply.

Businesses that have implemented measures to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Consumer Rights Act of 2020 (CCPA) can leverage some of their existing vendor contract terms, website disclosures and data subject rights response processes to satisfy requirements under the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA). However, the CPA, and the recently published proposed CPA Rules, contain certain unique and prescriptive requirements that may warrant taking a CPA-specific approach to compliance. How the finalized CCPA regulations and CPA Rules look will largely dictate whether companies will need to expand or change the scope of their privacy compliance measures to meet the obligations set forth under both California’s and Colorado’s privacy regimes.

California recently enacted the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (“Act”) with the stated intention of requiring businesses to consider the best interests of minors under the age of 18 when designing, developing and providing online services. If your business currently offers online services that are likely to be accessed by minors in California, you should consider starting to prepare Data Protection Impact Assessments in accordance with the Act as soon as possible because the law will require covered businesses to undertake such assessments before offering these services to the public, and it will take time to address the risks identified by the assessments before the Act fully takes effect on 1 July 2024.

The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (CPRA) amended the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) with most changes taking effect on 1 January 2023 with a twelve-month look-back. Limited exceptions concerning the personal data of employees and business contacts will expire. The new California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) has published draft regulations that will, once finalized, expand on the rules in the statute and existing regulations from the California Attorney General.

The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal’s (“FCA”) decision in Skechers USA Canada Inc. v. President of the Canada Border Services Agency (“Skechers”) now arguably broadens the scope of what research, design and development (“R&D”) costs must be included in the value for duty of imported goods determined under the transaction…