"I look em' in the eye and say you guys are heroes for what you did." ~ Sen. Bob Hertzberg

California Senator and former Speaker of the Assembly Bob Hertzberg is one happy camper.

The longtime Senator led the legislatures successful push to pass the most far-reaching privacy bill in the country.

Sen. Hertzberg hailed the efforts of the proponents of the California Consumer Privacy Act and members of the legislature. The two groups worked long hours to forge a compromise bill that unanimously passed both houses. "I'm over the moon," Hertzberg told IVN, "I think that we have made giant strides. We spent three months negotiating this, and we pitched it to the legislature and interest groups if you don't like the initiative, try this."

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California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018

The "this" was that initiative, the California Consumer Privacy Act, the brainchild of Alastair Mactaggart.

The group had gathered 650,000 signatures and it was destined for the November ballot.

Experts say the law, which will no doubt undergo changes before it becomes law in 2020, will give consumers more control over their personal data. The law will compel companies to tell customers upon request what personal data they've collected, why it was collected and what categories of third parties have received it.

A National Model For Privacy

Sen. Hertzberg believes this law will become a national model for other states. He also confirmed changes will be coming to the bill. "It's hard... you're not talking about land conveyances or how to build an apartment building, you're talking about the future, this notion of privacy has been informed by this extraordinary advancement in technology and so what that means is the legislature needs to be involved because changes are going to have to be made."

Sen. Hertzberg says the true heroes in this battle were the proponents and those who signed the petitions. "You're true heroes, you changed California in a way that we couldn't do ourselves. That kids are protected that you didn't have in the initiative that you signed Mrs. Jones, and Mrs. Smith there was no protection against the kind of loophole that existed in Cambridge Analytica, that there was no right to deletion Mr. Johnson when you signed this, but now it exists in the law."