Physician practices and other health care providers respond to numerous requests for confidential patient information from patients and others. Mistakes made by employees fulfilling such requests for medical records or making similar disclosures can expose the practice to civil litigation. A recent decision by the Connecticut Supreme Court (Byrne v. Avery Center for Obstetrics
Consumer Privacy
Does the GDPR Apply to Your US-based Company?
If you’ve been following the headlines, you know that a day doesn’t pass without a reference to the “GDPR”. On May 25, 2018, the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will take effect, marking the most significant change to European data privacy and security in over 20 years. Most multinational companies, and of…
Illinois Court of Appeals Holds BIPA Plaintiffs Must Allege Some Actual Harm
In a ruling that may have significant impact on the recent wave of biometric privacy suits, an Illinois state appeals court held that plaintiffs must claim actual harm to be considered an “aggrieved person” covered by Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), in a dispute arising from the alleged unlawful collection of fingerprints from a…
Senate Bill Introduced to Protect Personally Identifiable Information
Primarily motivated by several recent massive data breaches, Senate Democrats recently introduced a bill geared toward protecting Americans’ personal information against cyber attacks and to ensure timely notification and protection when data is breached.
The Consumer Privacy Protection Act of 2017 provides that companies that collect and hold data on at least 10,000 Americans would…
Supreme Court Will Not Hear Ninth Circuit Decision Regarding Willful Violations of FCRA’s Disclosure Provision
On November 13, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of one of 2017’s more significant Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) opinions, Syed v. M-I, LLC. (9th Cir. Jan. 20, 2017). In Syed, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a background check disclosure which included a liability waiver…
Elder Abuse: Are Granny Cams a Solution, a Compliance Burden, or Both?
In Minnesota, 97% of the 25,226 allegations of elder abuse (neglect, physical abuse, unexplained serious injuries and thefts) in state-licensed senior facilities in 2016 were never investigated. This prompted Minnesota Governor, Mark Dayton, to announce plans last week to form a task force to find out why. As one might expect, Minnesota is not alone.…
New York AG Announces SHIELD Act
On November 2nd, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced his proposal of the SHIELD Act – Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act – a bill that would heighten data security requirements for companies and better protect New York residents from data breaches of…
State AGs Argue That Federal Data Security Legislation Should Set Floor, Not Ceiling
The flood of massive data breaches – including, most recently, the Equifax breach that compromised the personal data of around 145 million U.S. consumers – has increased the pressure on Congress to pass sweeping federal data security and breach reporting legislation. While it’s difficult to project whether such legislation will be enacted in the near…
VOTE 2017 – We’re back thanks to you!
We are proud to once again announce that the Workplace Privacy Report has been nominated for The Expert Institute’s Best Legal Blog Competition.
From a field of thousands of nominees, the Workplace Privacy Report has received enough nominations to join one of the largest competitions for legal blog writing online today. If you enjoy the…
And Now, in Recent New York Cybersecurity Action…
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) have been busy on the cybersecurity front. In a press release on September 18, 2017, building upon the state’s pride in its “first-in-the-nation” cybersecurity regulations that were passed earlier this year, (which we previously discussed on our blog and…