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California has launched its first-ever sector-wide privacy audit, targeting gig economy platforms to determine whether they are actually honoring users' legal rights to access the personal information they collect.[1]
The California Privacy Protection Agency (CalPrivacy) announced Tuesday that its newly formed Audits Division will examine major app-based transportation, delivery, and task platforms operating in the state.
The audit will evaluate whether businesses across the gig economy are complying with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), particularly when consumers and workers ask to see the data companies have collected about them.
"You cannot contest a decision made by an algorithm without the underlying data," Sabrina Ross, CalPrivacy's chief privacy auditor, said in a statement. "Core to California's privacy rights is ensuring people have the power to access and understand the information that a company collects about them."
Ross argued that meaningful access to personal information is especially important when an algorithm can influence workers’ earnings.
“This audit is responsive to hundreds of consumer complaints and also comments received during public rulemaking,” Tom Kemp, CalPrivacy Executive Director, added. “The division is focused on increasing compliance through proactive engagement and review.”
Whether you're ordering dinner, booking a ride, or earning income through a delivery or ride-sharing app, gig platforms collect large amounts of personal information to operate their services.
According to CalPrivacy, that information may include precise geolocation data, financial information, communications records, behavioral and performance metrics, and even biometric identification data used to verify a worker's identity.
For gig workers, the data collected goes beyond basic account information.
Platforms can analyze performance metrics and behavioral data using algorithmic systems that help determine dispatch assignments, customer ratings, earnings and, in some cases, whether an account is suspended or deactivated.
Those practices aren't unique to one platform. Human Rights Watch found that many gig workers are "managed by algorithms" that influence their pay, ratings and access to work, often without giving workers meaningful insight into how those decisions are made. The group argues that workers need "a meaningful right to understand and challenge algorithmic decisions that shape pay, ratings, and access to work."
The group specifically called out DoorDash in its report, which reported a global revenue growth of 38% in the fourth quarter of 2025, as an example of how platforms rely on automated decision-making.
In a May engineering blog, DoorDash said its "assignment system optimizes, in real time, how to assign each delivery to a Dasher," while using machine learning to balance factors such as delivery times, driver costs and customer demand.
The company noted that Dashers remain free to accept or decline any delivery offer, despite referring to the process internally as an "assignment."
DoorDash is only one example; many apps operate similarly. That means information collected while using any similar app could influence not only what work is offered but how much a worker earns, or whether they’ll continue to have a job at all.
Regulators want to determine whether companies are complying with consumers' existing privacy rights under the CCPA. The law gives Californians the right to know what personal information a business has collected about them, why it collected that information, and with whom it has been shared.
Businesses are also required to respond to verified access requests within 45 days in most cases.
During the audit, regulators will evaluate whether platforms are responding to those requests on time, whether the information they provide is complete and whether their systems allow consumers and workers to meaningfully exercise their privacy rights.
"For gig workers in California, the right of access is vital because it may directly impact their livelihood,” Ross said.
With jobs on the line, the stakes are significant. A separate 2025 report by Human Rights Watch found that nearly one-third of the 127 Texas gig workers it surveyed had been deactivated from a platform at least once.
Among those workers, nearly half were ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing.
The report also found that many workers received little or no explanation for why they had been removed from the platform. This made it difficult for workers to appeal the decisions.
While privacy laws are often discussed in terms of targeted advertising or online tracking, access to personal information can have much broader consequences for gig workers.
Imagine a delivery driver suddenly stops receiving orders, a ride-share driver's account is deactivated, or a worker's earnings unexpectedly decline. If an algorithm helped make that decision, understanding the information behind it may be the first step toward determining whether it was accurate, let alone whether it can be challenged.
CalPrivacy describes the right of access as the foundation for many other privacy protections because consumers generally can't correct inaccurate information or request its deletion if they don't know it exists in the first place.
Additionally, the law extends workplace privacy rights to employees, job applicants, and independent contractors.
Under the CCPA, California residents can generally ask businesses to disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information they have collected, explain why that information was gathered, and identify the third parties with whom it has been shared.
Depending on the circumstances, consumers may also have the right to request that certain personal information be corrected or deleted.
CalPrivacy says the gig economy review is just the beginning, with more sector-wide privacy audits planned across other industries.
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[1] California Privacy Protection Agency Launches First Sectoral Audit, Targets Gig Economy Platforms
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