Last month the state of California began enforcing its expensive and heavy-handed new business privacy laws despite the economic burdens already borne by business because of COVID-19 and the government’s shut down of the economy. At $55 billion in compliance costs with the threat of millions more in penalties and fines California storefronts must now figure out how to comply with the complicated and often undefined terms of the law.

In addition to the already-acknowledged problems with the California Consumer Privacy Act, those who crafted, and support still seem to miss the obvious – people do not trust government with their information. Maybe that is where real privacy protections should have begun.

According to a recent survey by Varonis, a cybersecurity company that is focused on data security, only 31% of Americans trust the government with their data while shockingly 35% trust credit card companies. Pew Research Center had similar results last year with 84% of those polled saying they feel that they have no control over data the government collects. More felt they did have control when companies had their data.