The California Consumer Privacy Act went into effect Wednesday.

The California Consumer Privacy Act, signed into law by then-governor Jerry Brown in June 2018, was enacted in response to a series of data misuse incidents.

The Act aims to protect California residents’ online privacy by giving them control over their personal information.

It gives California consumers the right to know what personal information businesses are collecting about them, the right to know whether that information is being sold or shared and to whom, the right to forbid those businesses from sharing or selling that personal information, and the right not to be discriminated against for doing so.

While the Act protects only California residents, some companies have decided to extend the Act’s protections to consumers nationwide.

Now that the Act has gone into effect and companies have had to update their privacy policies, what remains to be seen is whether other states will also enact similar data privacy laws.