The Cost of CCPA Noncompliance is Steeper Than You Think

Five years after its enforcement began, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has fundamentally changed how organizations handle consumer data. Although the consequences of non-compliance have grown more severe, organizations continue to struggle with maintaining regulatory compliance.

According to the 2025 State of Data Compliance and Security Report, an alarming 60% of organizations experienced data breaches or theft in non-production environments in the past year — an 11% increase from 2024. 

The cost of noncompliance extends far beyond hefty legal fines, and could result in damage to a company’s reputation. Moreover, since CCPA signals the beginning of more data security regulation across the U.S., failing to invest in a data strategy now — even for those organizations not immediately affected — means jeopardizing the long-term health of your business.

Non-Production Environments: Taming the Beast

Most companies that collect sensitive data, like birth dates, credit card information or even social security numbers, already have proper security measures in place when it comes to highly-visible production environments.

It’s the data living in non-production environments that is so vulnerable. Non-production environments are for development and testing, using copies of real customer and company data. Research reveals the scope of this challenge: 95% of organizations report storing more sensitive data in non-production than the previous year, driven primarily by increased data-driven decision-making (cited by 65% of respondents).

These environments are numerous — for every production instance of an application, there are at least 10 copies of a non-production environment — and they have many users. What’s more, non-production data is sometimes moved across different systems, whether on-premises or to the cloud, introducing further security risks.

100% of surveyed organizations have data subject to privacy regulations in non-production, yet 84% allow compliance exceptions in these environments — creating significant CCPA vulnerability.

What makes this particularly dangerous? 95% of respondents in our research are at least moderately concerned about data breaches in non-production. And this heightened anxiety is warranted. 

In 2016, for example, hackers infiltrated Uber’s third-party cloud servers, where the company stored sensitive consumer data for use in non-production environments. The hackers’ entry point was an access key posted by an Uber engineer to a code-sharing website. With it, they downloaded unencrypted files containing personal data of millions of Uber customers.

CCPA, GDPR, and the like are designed to protect consumers from instances like the Uber hack. But playing catchup with new legislation is ultimately more costly and leads to more instances of noncompliance.

Instead, since data collection is a constant reality for most businesses, data protection should be a standard practice. Whether it’s customized or based on existing regulations, companies can take a policy-driven approach to dictate which data is sensitive and how to protect it. This is critical, since CCPA is almost certainly the tip of the regulatory iceberg in the U.S. More states are sure to follow with their own legislation, and regulation at the federal level may not be far behind.

“This [CCPA] isn’t a one and done,” Jennifer Rathburn, a compliance expert and partner at the law firm Foley & Lardner, told WIRED. “This is an evolving area that’s pretty new to the US. In sum, privacy is here to stay.”

The Growing Cost of CCPA Noncompliance in 2025

Five years into CCPA enforcement, the financial and operational costs of noncompliance have become clearer.

Direct Financial Impact

• Fines remain steep. Up to $2,500 per unintentional violation and $7,500 per intentional violation.
• Private right of action allows consumers to claim up to $750 per incident in data breaches.
• Organizations have just 30 days to solve violations after notification.

The Hidden Costs

• 60% of organizations experienced data breaches or theft in non-production in the past year.
• 68% are concerned about privacy and compliance audits that could reveal systemic noncompliance issues.
• Operational disruption is an issue as well. 54% of organizations report that protecting sensitive data leads to slower development cycles when using inadequate tools.

The real cost isn't just penalties. It’s also the impact on business operations, customer trust, and organizational reputation. 

The Real Costs of Noncompliance: Lawsuits, Fines, Consumer Distrust

Back during the infancy of CCPA suits,  Dominique Shelton Leipzig, partner, and co-chair of ad tech privacy & data management at Perkins Coie, predicted the Attorney General’s office would “aggressively” pursue enforcement.

“In California, we have a culture of privacy class actions,” she says. “It’s a highly litigious state, so it’s not going to be like GDPR where people are waiting for regulators to enforce in different jurisdiction.”

Five years later, those predictions proved accurate. CCPA litigation has become commonplace. Enforcement has also expanded under the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA), established by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) amendments. 

Beyond lawsuits, companies that fail to comply with CCPA regulations could also jeopardize customer relationships. Consumer expectations have evolved dramatically. Modern consumers don't just expect data protection — they demand it. The stakes are higher as the data footprint grows larger. Organizations now work with sensitive data across more environments than ever. Our report found that 100% of organizations use sensitive data in analytics workflows, 95% in software testing, and 90% in AI development. Each environment represents a potential CCPA compliance failure if not properly

Businesses that fail to protect personal data may begin losing consumers — along with the revenue and data insights they bring.

Think of the fall-out from the 2017 Equifax breach: The company still hasn’t fully recovered. In addition to the millions it owes after a massive settlement in2019, Equifax struggled to get back in the good graces of its customers. Its ratings outlook has suffered and sales have stagnated.

Take a Policy-Driven Approach to Compliance

Achieving compliance is no small undertaking, involving the entire business to collaborate, implementing policies, technologies, and human practices for the secure management of personal data. While no single technology will entirely satisfy the requirements of CCPA and other regulations, integrating a data masking solution is one way to implement a policy-driven approach, and here is where Delphix can play a pivotal role.

Data masking has become the industry standard for CCPA compliance. Our research shows that 95% of organizations now use static data masking to protect sensitive information in non-production environments. 

Why the near-universal adoption? Because it works: 81% of organizations rate static masking as highly effective at preventing data breaches, and 79% rate it highly effective for scalability. 

With data masking, sensitive California consumer data is protected without impacting the application behavior. Delphix is simple enough to allow business users to create enterprise-level masking policies for CCPA that define what data should be masked, where, and how. Users can then consistently deploy those policies across different data sources and locations (e.g. on premises and in the cloud).

Unlike manual approaches that can cost organizations millions and take months to implement across applications, automated masking solutions like Delphix protect data at an enterprise scale in just a fraction of the time. 

Finally, masking data not only neutralizes the risk of a breach in these environments, but it also eases the burden of complying with several key CCPA provisions, including the “right to deletion.” The key, therefore, to maintaining compliance with CCPA and other emerging regulatory legislation is to think beyond it. Rather than tackle the problem and piecemeal with compliance or security strategies, address all possible issues with a holistic data strategy. By leveraging tools like data masking and enlisting partners like Delphix, companies can take full control of their data to seamlessly respond to new regulation and more — leaving room to focus on innovation and growth.

Modern CCPA Compliance Challenges Organizations Now Face

CCPA compliance in 2025 faces new complexities that didn't exist in 2020.

The AI Factor

California consumer data increasingly flows into AI and machine learning workflows. Our report found that 90% of organizations work with sensitive data in AI environments, and 78% are highly concerned about theft or breach of model training data. AI models can inadvertently memorize and reproduce personal information, creating unique CCPA risks. Organizations must mask data before it enters AI pipelines.

Analytics at Scale

Data-driven decision-making drives CCPA compliance challenges. With 100% of organizations reporting having used sensitive data in analytics workflows, protecting California consumer data in business intelligence platforms is critical. But many organizations struggle to balance data utility with protection. The solution? Automated masking that maintains data realism and referential integrity — enabling accurate analytics without CCPA exposure.

The Speed vs. Security Myth

The report found that 61% of organizations fear that protecting data slows innovation, and 54% worry it degrades data quality. These perceived trade-offs drive the 84% of organizations who report allowing compliance exceptions. But modern masking solutions prove this is a false choice. Organizations can achieve both speed and compliance — protecting California consumer data while accelerating delivery to development, testing, and analytics teams. 

Simplify Compliance Without Sacrificing Speed with Perforce Delphix

Navigating privacy laws like CCPA can feel overwhelming. Especially when sensitive data is shared across functions. The Perforce Delphix DevOps Data Platform provides a smarter solution for your organization with advanced data masking. Transform sensitive information into fake but realistic values to keep data safe while still being useful. Delphix helps ensure your organization reduces compliance costs and remains protected against breaches.

Delphix delivers masked data efficiently and securely across all your workflows, whether for development, testing, or analytics. Delphix keeps you ahead of cyber threats and regulatory demands while minimizing the overall cost of CCPA compliance.

Want to make compliance easier? Explore how Delphix masks data and speeds up workflows.

Mask Data for Compliance