Your personal information has become one of the most valuable commodities in the digital economy, yet companies treat it as their property to harvest, sell, and exploit without your meaningful consent. When businesses violate California's groundbreaking privacy laws, when data breaches expose your sensitive information, or when companies engage in surveillance that violates your fundamental rights, you deserve compensation. The Los Angeles privacy lawyers at Tauler Smith LLP help individuals enforce their privacy rights and recover damages from companies that treat personal information as a corporate asset rather than a fundamental human right.
California's Revolutionary Privacy Protections
California leads the nation with privacy laws that give consumers real rights over their personal information. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) create rights to know what information companies collect, delete personal information, opt-out of sale and sharing, correct inaccurate information, and limit use of sensitive personal information. When companies violate these rights or fail to implement reasonable security measures that lead to breaches, consumers can recover statutory damages without proving actual harm.
The CCPA's private right of action for data breaches involving non-encrypted or non-redacted personal information creates significant liability for companies that fail to implement reasonable security. Statutory damages range from $100 to $750 per consumer per incident, or actual damages if greater. For breaches affecting thousands of consumers, these statutory damages create massive potential liability that finally gives companies real incentives to protect personal information.
Beyond data breach claims, violations of other CCPA rights can support claims under California's Unfair Competition Law. When companies ignore deletion requests, continue selling data after opt-outs, or discriminate against consumers who exercise privacy rights, these violations constitute unfair business practices. Class actions can aggregate these violations across thousands of consumers, creating powerful leverage for systemic change.
Fighting Surveillance Capitalism
The business model of surveillance capitalism treats your every action as data to be captured, analyzed, and monetized. Apps track your location constantly, building detailed profiles of where you go, who you meet, and what you do. Websites record every click, scroll, and keystroke through session replay software that captures even information you type but don't submit. Smart devices in your home listen constantly, sending recordings to corporate servers where they're analyzed and stored indefinitely.
This pervasive surveillance violates both statutory privacy rights and constitutional privacy protections. California's constitution includes an explicit right to privacy that reaches private actors, not just government. When companies engage in surveillance that would be highly offensive to reasonable people, intrude into private affairs without legitimate justification, or violate reasonable expectations of privacy, they face liability beyond statutory violations.
Biometric surveillance represents particularly invasive privacy violations. Companies collecting facial recognition data, voice prints, and other biometric identifiers without proper consent face liability under both California common law and potentially Illinois's Biometric Information Privacy Act if they do business there. These unique identifiers can't be changed when compromised, making their protection essential.
Contact the Los Angeles Privacy Law Attorneys at Tauler Smith LLP
Based in Downtown Los Angeles, we help California consumers enforce their privacy rights against companies that treat personal information as their property. Whether you've suffered from data breaches, illegal surveillance, or violations of your privacy rights, our attorneys understand both the technology and the law needed to hold companies accountable.
Call 310-590-3927 or complete our online form to discuss your privacy law matter.