Security Consulting & Compliance
CCPA Compliance Audit
California consumer privacy rights readiness.
Every engagement includes manual validation, a two audience report and free re-testing.
Get a scoped quote+91 96682 00222What this actually is
The California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the CPRA, gives Californian consumers rights over their personal information and imposes duties on businesses that meet its thresholds. Those thresholds are lower than most companies assume once you count data sharing rather than just revenue.
The operative concepts differ from GDPR in ways that matter. Sale and sharing have specific meanings that catch ordinary advertising arrangements. Sensitive personal information has its own limitation right. Opt out has to be genuinely easy, including through a signal your site honours automatically.
We assess against the regulations as they currently stand, including the requirements enforced by the California Privacy Protection Agency.
What we go after
- Threshold analysis to establish whether you are a business under the Act
- Inventory of personal information collected, by category and purpose
- Whether you sell or share, in the Act's specific meaning of those words
- Consumer rights: know, delete, correct, opt out, limit use of sensitive information
- Notice at collection and privacy policy content requirements
- Opt out mechanisms including the Global Privacy Control signal
- Service provider and contractor contract terms
- Retention disclosures and the honouring of deletion downstream
How we run it
- 01
Gap assessment
We measure you against the standard as it is actually audited, not as it reads on paper.
- 02
Remediation plan
Every gap gets an owner, an effort estimate and a date. You decide what lands this quarter.
- 03
Implement and evidence
We write the policy, build the control and collect the artefact that proves it is working.
- 04
Internal audit
A dry run under audit conditions, so nothing in the real one is a surprise.
- 05
Certify and maintain
We sit on your side of the table for the audit, then keep the evidence current between cycles.
What you receive
- Threshold and applicability determination in writing
- Data inventory by statutory category
- Gap report against each obligation with remediation steps
- Revised notice at collection and privacy policy wording
- Rights handling process with the statutory timelines built in
- Contract language for service providers and contractors
Who needs this
Companies with Californian consumers that meet the revenue, volume or data sharing thresholds, and their service providers.
How long it takes
Three to four weeks.
Standards this satisfies
- CCPA
- CPRA
- GDPR
- DPDP Act 2023
Why it matters
Almost nobody starts a certification because they want one. It starts because a customer will not sign without it, a regulator has asked, or a deal is sitting still while procurement waits for evidence. The commercial driver is real and it is worth being honest that it, rather than security, is usually what pays for the programme.
The security benefit is real too, but it comes from a specific place: the discipline of having to evidence that a control operated over a period, rather than that it was configured once. That is the part that changes behaviour, and it is also the part organisations consistently underestimate.
Choose how you want this delivered
Most of the price difference between quotes comes down to this one choice, and it is rarely explained. Pick one to see what it covers, what it suits and what it costs you.
Gap assessment, then we work alongside your team through remediation, internal audit and the certification audit itself. Your people do the work and own the outcome, which is what makes the management system survive after we leave. This is what most organisations should choose.
Choose this when
- You have a team who can absorb the work alongside their day job
- You want the capability to remain in-house afterwards
- First certification where documentation is the main gap
Effort and cost
Moderate. The calendar is longer than a managed programme because the work competes with everyone's existing responsibilities.
Scope it yourself, before you call anyone
Answer a few questions and you get an indicative number, the working behind it and what your answers tell us. It runs in your browser, so nothing you type reaches us.
Which framework are you going for?
What we look for, and keep finding
These are the classes of problem this work exists to surface. Not every engagement finds all of them, but these are the ones that turn up often enough to be worth naming.
Controls that exist on paper only
The policy says quarterly access reviews. The evidence shows one, eighteen months ago, and it was not completed. This is the single most common audit finding across every framework.
Scope drawn too narrowly
A certificate covering a subset of the business that customers assume covers all of it. Auditors check the boundary; buyers rarely do. Getting scope right is the most consequential early decision.
Evidence that cannot be reproduced
A screenshot proves a control was configured on the day someone took it. A framework wants proof it operated throughout the period. Those are very different, and the gap only appears at the audit.
Exceptions with no expiry
Risk accepted once, recorded, and never revisited. Over a few years these accumulate into an undocumented second control framework nobody is managing.
Third parties outside the boundary
Processing carried out by a supplier who was assessed at onboarding and never since, while your obligation for their handling of your data continues regardless.
Who runs your engagement
A lead assessor who has sat on the other side of the table
Compliance work is led by an assessor who has taken organisations through certification, not by a consultant reading the standard for the first time with you. They know which findings a certification body will actually raise, which is a different list from what the standard technically says.
Questions we get asked
We do not sell data. Does the opt out still apply?
Very possibly. Sharing for cross context behavioural advertising is covered even where no money changes hands, so ordinary advertising pixels can bring you within it. This is the most common way companies conclude they are exempt when they are not.
Do we have to honour Global Privacy Control?
Yes, where you are subject to the opt out obligation. It has to be honoured automatically as a valid opt out request. A cookie banner alone does not satisfy it.
How is this different from GDPR?
GDPR requires a lawful basis before processing; CCPA generally permits processing but grants rights afterwards. CCPA also covers household data and has its own sensitive information category. If you have done GDPR properly you are perhaps sixty percent of the way, not ninety.
What are the penalties?
Administrative fines per violation, higher where minors are involved, plus a private right of action for certain breaches. The private right of action is the one that produces class actions, and it attaches to security failures rather than paperwork failures.
Often scoped alongside
- CERT-In Cyber Security AuditCERT-In empanelled audit and certification for government and regulated entities.Read more
- ISO 27001 Audit & CertificationISMS design, implementation, internal audit and certification support end to end.Read more
- ISO 27017 Compliance AuditCloud-specific security controls for providers and customers.Read more
- ISO 27018 Compliance AuditProtection of personally identifiable information in public clouds.Read more
Ready to scope your ccpa compliance audit?
Thirty minutes with a senior engineer, and you leave with a written scope and indicative effort.