In the years leading up to implementation, the European Union’s General Data Protection (GDPR) was framed as a contrast point to U.S. privacy laws. While European regulators were busy building an elaborate consumer privacy framework, U.S. businesses were operating with little explicit regulation. A proposed ballot initiative in California, however, could soon change that.

The California Consumer Privacy Act, a ballot initiative put forth by a group of California residents, may put in place the largest sweeping consumer data privacy protections in the country. The ballot initiative could go before California voters in November and promises to fundamentally readjust how tech companies and attorneys think about data privacy domestically.