CPPA Issues First CCPA Enforcement Action for a Non-Data Broker

On March 12, 2025, the California Privacy Protection Agency announced its first non-data broker enforcement action against a vehicle manufacturer, resulting in a $632,500 fine. The Agency identified four violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act:

1. Requiring excessive personal information for consumer privacy requests
2. Improperly handling authorized agent submissions
3. Failing to provide symmetrical cookie consent options
4. Not maintaining required contracts with third-party advertising companies

Beyond the financial penalty, the manufacturer must implement several remedial measures, including:

• Separating different types of request methods
• Changing its authorized agent process
• Modifying its cookie preference tool to include a "Reject All" button
• Consulting with a user experience designer
• Confirming proper contractual terms with all external recipients of personal information within 180 days

The CPPA's Connected Vehicle Enforcement Initiative

The California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) launched a strategic enforcement initiative targeting connected vehicle manufacturers in July 2023. Their investigation into Honda, which began on July 31, 2023, represents one of the first major enforcement actions since the CPPA gained full enforcement authority earlier that year.

Modern vehicles collect extensive personal data through multiple systems, including location tracking, driving behavior monitoring, smartphone integration, and in-cabin surveillance. Connected cars essentially function as mobile data collection platforms capable of revealing intimate details about consumers' lives—tracking where they live, work, worship, seek medical care, and socialize. This comprehensive data-gathering capability makes the automotive industry a high-priority target for privacy regulators.

Unlike websites or mobile apps where consumers might expect some data collection, vehicles represent a traditionally private space now transformed into surveillance mechanisms. Mario Trujillo, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, observed that it's "difficult for consumers to protect their privacy online and even harder in cars," explaining why regulators have prioritized this industry. The CPPA appears to be implementing a methodical sector-by-sector enforcement strategy rather than randomly selecting targets.

Honda's Privacy Violations

Excessive Information Collection

Honda required eight data points when only two were necessary to identify consumers in their database. This over-collection applied to all privacy request types, inappropriately imposing verification standards on opt-out requests that shouldn't require verification under the CCPA.

Improper Authorized Agent Handling

Honda required consumers to directly confirm they had authorized their agents, contradicting CCPA regulations that prohibit such direct confirmation requirements for opt-out and limitation requests.

Missing Vendor Contracts

Despite collecting, selling, sharing, and disclosing personal information with advertising technology vendors, Honda failed to produce the required contracts during the investigation, leaving consumer data inadequately protected.

Asymmetrical Cookie Consent

Honda's cookie management tool allowed users to opt into all cookies with a single "Allow All" click but required two separate actions to opt out: clicking a toggle button and then clicking "Confirm My Choices." The CPPA determined this violated the symmetrical choice requirement under California regulations.

Ben Winters, data privacy director at the Consumer Federation of America, characterized Honda's practices as "a common set of harmful data practices—collect so much more than you might need, keep it around, make it tough and unclear to understand or control what's being collected, and freely capitalize on the sale of that data when convenient."

Honda's failure to maintain proper contracts with advertising technology companies worsens these concerns. Without appropriate contractual safeguards, sensitive vehicle data could be used for purposes far beyond consumer expectations or combined with other data sources to create detailed personal profiles.

The Regulatory Response and Remedial Actions

The enforcement action clearly indicates that regulators are closely examining the user experience of privacy controls. Companies must design interfaces that don't create unnecessary friction for privacy-protective choices. The symmetry requirement addresses dark patterns that subtly influence user behavior through manipulative interface design.

Honda's required remedial actions include:

• Consulting with a user experience designer to evaluate privacy request methods
• Implementing the Global Privacy Control
• Modifying its cookie preference tool to include a "Reject All" button with equal prominence to "Allow All"
• Separating different types of request methods
• Changing its authorized agent process
• Confirming proper contractual terms with all external recipients of personal information within 180 days

These requirements show regulators' growing focus on the technical implementation details of privacy controls rather than just policy statements.

Analysis of the $632,500 Fine

The $632,500 fine imposed on Honda represents the maximum penalty of $2,500 per violation under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Of this total, $382,500 was attributed to Honda's conduct affecting just 153 consumers - roughly $2,500 per affected individual. This per-violation calculation method could lead to substantially larger fines for more widespread violations, potentially creating a meaningful deterrent for future cases.

However, questions persist about whether such penalties effectively deter privacy violations when compared to potential profits from data collection. The CPPA's enforcement approach seems to acknowledge this limitation. Michael Macko, head of the CPPA's Enforcement Division, noted that "businesses are usually more reluctant to change their practices than they are to write a check." This suggests the agency views the mandated changes to Honda's business practices as more significant than the monetary penalty itself.

Implementation Challenges for Privacy Compliance

Technical and UX Challenges

Implementing symmetrical cookie consent mechanisms creates several technical hurdles for companies trying to comply with California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) requirements. The Honda case revealed how even industry-leading cookie management tools can fail to meet regulatory expectations. Companies typically rely on third-party consent management platforms that aren't configured by default to provide true symmetry in choice architecture.

The technical implementation demands careful attention to click counts, visual prominence, and user flow paths. In Honda's case, their cookie management tool required two clicks to opt out (toggle button plus confirmation) but only one click to opt in via an "Allow All" button. This seemingly minor difference violated the CPPA's symmetry requirements. Companies must customize these platforms to ensure equal effort for both privacy-protective and non-privacy-protective choices.

Backend integration challenges further complicate privacy consent issues. Cookie choices must connect with data processing systems, advertising networks, and analytics platforms, requiring technical modifications at each integration point. Many organizations struggle with legacy systems that weren't designed for granular consent management.

Performance considerations add more friction. Implementing symmetrical consent mechanisms can affect page load times and user experience metrics, creating tension between compliance requirements and business objectives. This sometimes results in minimalist implementations that technically comply but subtly discourage privacy-protective choices.

The CPPA's UX Design Mandate

The CPPA's requirement for Honda to consult with a UX designer signals a shift toward evidence-based privacy interface design. This mandate requires evaluation of CCPA request methods to ensure they're user-friendly and free from confusing elements.

This approach introduces formal usability testing into privacy compliance, including "identifying target user groups and performing testing activities, such as A/B testing." Such testing reveals how interface elements influence user decisions through placement, color, size, and wording.

UX design consultation brings data-driven decision-making to privacy interfaces, incorporating behavioral insights about how users actually interact with controls. Companies will likely need to document this process, creating new evidence requirements that go beyond traditional legal analysis.

Verification Standards and Dark Patterns

The UX focus directly addresses dark patterns—design tricks that manipulate users. The CPPA's enforcement action demonstrates that regulators now scrutinize not just what choices are offered but how they're presented, transforming compliance from a simple checkbox exercise into a complex design challenge.

The CPPA's emphasis on symmetrical choice in cookie management tools marks a significant evolution in regulatory expectations about dark patterns. This focus shifts privacy enforcement from policy content to interface design, examining how companies influence user behavior through subtle design choices.

The Honda enforcement action demonstrates that regulators now analyze several key aspects of interface design:

• Click requirements: The CPPA cited Honda's two-step opt-out process compared to the one-step opt-in as a violation, establishing objective standards for what constitutes manipulative design.
• Visual prominence: The order requires Honda to implement a "Reject All" button with equal prominence to the "Allow All" button, addressing how visual hierarchy shapes user choices.
• Default settings: The agency noted that Honda's cookie management tool had performance, functional, and advertising cookies "allowed" or "active" by default, acknowledging that defaults powerfully influence user decisions.

This enforcement action introduces behavioral science concepts into privacy regulation. By requiring Honda to consult with a user experience designer and conduct testing like A/B tests, the CPPA acknowledges that interface design creates predictable behavioral outcomes that can undermine privacy rights.

The CPPA's approach suggests that consent obtained through poorly designed interfaces may be considered invalid, even when users technically could make privacy-protective choices. This raises the standard from mere technical capability to actual usability and fairness in design.

Training and Operational Challenges

Maintaining different verification standards for different privacy requests creates significant operational complications. The CCPA distinguishes between requests requiring verification (delete, correct, know) and those that don't (opt-out, limit). Honda's violation stemmed from incorrectly applying verification requirements uniformly across all request types.

This differentiation requires companies to build branching logic into their privacy request systems, identifying request types early to apply appropriate verification standards. Many companies struggle with this implementation, particularly when using generic platforms not specifically designed for privacy compliance.

Training challenges emerge when customer service representatives must apply different standards based on request type. Staff must recognize which requests require verification and which don't, a distinction that often remains unclear without specialized training. This creates the risk of inconsistent application of standards across different representatives or channels.

Record-keeping becomes more complex with varied verification standards. Companies must document what verification was performed for which requests, creating detailed audit trails that demonstrate appropriate differentiation. This requires more sophisticated data management than a one-size-fits-all approach.

The verification distinction also creates security tensions. Security teams typically push for maximum verification for all data-related requests, while privacy compliance requires a more nuanced approach. This organizational conflict can lead to over-verification as security concerns override privacy compliance requirements.

Broader Implications for the Privacy Landscape

The California Privacy Protection Agency's enforcement action against Honda creates ripple effects that extend well beyond California's borders. This $632,500 fine and mandated remedial actions establish precedents that influence privacy practices nationally and internationally through several mechanisms.

Many Companies Implement Unified Privacy Approaches Across Jurisdictions

Many companies implement unified privacy approaches across jurisdictions rather than maintaining state-specific systems. The technical and operational costs of creating California-specific privacy interfaces often outweigh the benefits of maintaining lower standards elsewhere, creating a de facto national standard. Aaron Burstein, a Kelley Drye privacy lawyer, noted that the CPPA's focus on consent management tools "sweeps across a much broader range of companies than just one industry."

Technical Infrastructure Implications

The enforcement action targets widely used technical infrastructure, specifically criticizing Honda's implementation of OneTrust, a consent management platform used by thousands of companies globally. This scrutiny forces vendors to modify their products for all clients, not just those with California consumers. Companies using similar platforms must now evaluate whether their implementations contain the same flaws identified in Honda's case.

Establishing Clear Compliance Standards

The CPPA's order requires Honda to implement a "Reject All" button with equal prominence to the "Allow All" button, creating a clear design standard that eliminates interpretation ambiguity. This specificity provides concrete implementation guidelines that compliance teams can reference regardless of their location.

Global Regulatory Convergence

European regulators pay attention to California enforcement actions, and vice versa. The CPPA's focus on symmetrical choice aligns with similar concerns expressed by European data protection authorities, creating convergent global standards. Companies operating internationally must reconcile these overlapping requirements, often by adopting the most stringent approach across all markets.

The symmetrical choice requirement extends beyond vehicle manufacturers to affect digital consent practices across all industries. Companies using common cookie management tools (like OneTrust in Honda's case) should review their implementation to ensure equal effort for both privacy-protective and less privacy-protective options. The CPPA explicitly stated that providing "Accept All" and "Decline All" buttons with equal prominence represents appropriate symmetry.

The CPPA's emphasis on this issue may influence other privacy regulations and enforcement priorities. Companies operating across multiple jurisdictions will likely need to implement symmetrical choice mechanisms globally to maintain consistent user experiences while meeting California's requirements.

Strategic Considerations for Organizations

Organizations' relationships with third-party vendors create vulnerabilities that can lead to CCPA violations. The most significant vulnerability stems from inadequate contract management. The CPPA cited Honda for failing to produce contracts with advertising technology companies despite collecting, selling, sharing, and disclosing personal information with these entities. This contractual gap violates CCPA Section 1798.100(d), which requires specific provisions when sharing data with third parties.

Privacy Compliance Challenges in Vendor Management and Consumer Rights

Many organizations lack comprehensive vendor inventories that identify all third parties receiving personal information. This creates blind spots where data flows without appropriate contractual safeguards, further complicated by untracked sub-processor relationships.

Technical implementation vulnerabilities exist where third-party code operates on company websites or applications. Cookie consent managers, analytics tools, and advertising technologies often deploy with default settings that prioritize data collection over privacy. The Honda case highlighted how OneTrust was implemented in a way that violated CCPA requirements for symmetrical choice. Organizations frequently implement vendor-recommended configurations without independently verifying compliance.

Vendor security assessment processes often focus on information security while neglecting privacy compliance. Traditional risk management may evaluate encryption, access controls, and incident response capabilities without examining how product design affects consumer privacy rights, creating a disconnect between security and privacy governance.

Excessive Data Collection in Privacy Request Systems

Companies continue implementing privacy request systems that collect excessive personal information despite regulatory guidance. The Honda case demonstrated this problem, requiring eight data points from consumers when only two were necessary for identification. This over-collection persists due to several factors:

• Security teams often drive verification requirements based on fraud prevention concerns rather than privacy compliance considerations, preferring maximum verification to prevent unauthorized access. This security-first mindset can override compliance requirements, particularly when security teams hold more organizational influence than privacy teams. The CPPA highlighted this tension in its findings against Honda, stating that businesses cannot apply verification standards to requests that don’t require verification under the CCPA.
• Legacy systems and technical debt create significant barriers to implementing differentiated verification processes. Many organizations rely on platforms not designed for privacy request management, with rigid form fields that struggle to accommodate different verification standards. Modifying these systems requires development resources that organizations often don’t prioritize.
• Risk perception heavily influences decision-making, as many organizations view the risk of unauthorized access as more concerning than the compliance risk of over-collection. The $632,500 fine against Honda now quantifies this risk in a way that organizations can incorporate into their decision-making process.

Avoiding CPPA Enforcement: Key Proactive Measures

Organizations should take several proactive steps to avoid becoming the next CPPA enforcement target:

Comprehensive Vendor Contract Review

• Conduct an urgent inventory of all third parties receiving personal information and verify appropriate contractual terms exist for each relationship. The Honda enforcement action specifically highlighted missing contracts with advertising technology companies as a violation.
• Ensure agreements include clear limitations on use, prohibitions on selling or sharing without consent, and robust security requirements.

Privacy Request System Evaluation

• Map your current verification requirements against the CCPA's distinctions between requests requiring verification (delete, correct, know) and those that don't (opt-out, limit). The CPPA criticized Honda for requiring the same eight data points for all request types.
• Modify any systems that apply uniform verification standards to create properly differentiated processes.

Cookie Consent Mechanism Review

• Perform technical reviews to ensure symmetrical choice in consent interfaces.
• Count the clicks required for privacy-protective versus non-privacy-protective choices and make sure they match.
• Display "Reject All" buttons just as prominently as "Accept All" buttons.
• Examine default settings to avoid favoring data collection over privacy protection. These specific issues formed the core of the CPPA's findings against Honda.

User Experience Testing

Implement UX testing of privacy interfaces to provide evidence of your compliance efforts. The Honda settlement specifically required consultation with a UX designer to evaluate privacy request methods.

Consider implementing A/B testing to:

• Assess user behavior.
• Identify potential dark patterns.

Document these evaluations thoroughly to demonstrate good faith compliance attempts. This could mitigate penalties if violations are later discovered.