On July 1, the state of California began enforcing a landmark law aimed at holding tech companies like Facebook accountable for how they monetize user data. And according to experts, this new policy could prove to be a “nightmare” for the social media giant.

The California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) is a first-of-its-kind data privacy law intended to protect consumers — and it could serve as a blueprint for states across the country looking to rein in Facebook. It gives users the ability to see what data is being collected about them, and even to stop it from being sold. It also gives the California attorney general broad power to punish companies that violate the law.

According to Facebook, it’s doing everything in its power to comply with these new rules.

“We’ve created dozens of teams, both technical and nontechnical, that are focused solely on privacy, and we currently have thousands of people working on privacy-related projects and we’re hiring many more,” a Facebook spokesman told MarketWatch. “For example, we built self-serve tools that let people access, download and delete the information they share on our service. We make these tools available to everyone on Facebook, regardless of where they are.”

Any legislation that can cause Facebook to strengthen its privacy policies is a good thing. Here’s hoping more states follow suit and implement laws that put pressure on the company.

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