The Lowdown on VCDPA: Everything You Need to Know

Following the path of California’s CPRA, Virginia became the second state to pass a comprehensive data privacy law in March 2022 with the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA). Effective January 1, 2023, here’s everything you need to know about the VCDPA. 

What is VCDPA and how is it different from CCPA or CPRA? 

The VCDPA (Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act) is a privacy law applicable only to residents of the state of Virginia. It came into effect on January 1, and it is enforceable from the same date. This means that businesses all around the world must comply with the VCDPA law if they wish to continue processing the personal data of Virginia residents.  

Although there are similarities between these two laws, especially around sensitive personal data, there are some notable differences too. Here’s a high-level deep dive: 

What does it mean for app developers?  

To become compliant with VDCPA, app developers and publishers will need to:    

• Inform their consumers located in Virginia of their VCDPA rights through a reasonably accessible and clear privacy policy   
• Acquire consent to process sensitive personal data, including precise geo-location and children's personal data  
• Only share valid consented data with ad partners  
• Provide a clear link to users to opt-out of processing of personal data for the purposes of targeted advertising, sale, or profiling  
• Given the above, rely on a mechanism to honor consumer requests  

How is InMobi preparing? 

We have made server-side changes to consume the do_not_sell flags from our publisher customers so they can inform us when a user opts out of targeted advertising, sale, or profiling. The same will be applicable for our mediation partners and supported header bidding solutions. This means that publishers will be able to send us an opt-out flag at request level.  

Publishers will be provided with all applicable DSRs i.e. Right to Delete, Right to Access/Portability, etc., through our updated DSR Management process. All publishers will soon be notified of this updated DSR Management process.