One of the industries perhaps hardest hit by the coronavirus, the travel industry, received welcomed news late last week in the form of CDC guidance stating that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can resume domestic travel and do not need to get tested for COVID-19 before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel. According to … Continue Reading
Colorado recently became the latest state to consider a comprehensive consumer privacy law. On March 19, 2021, Colorado State Senators Rodriguez and Lundeen introduced SB 21-190, entitled “an Act Concerning additional protection of data relating to personal privacy”. Following California’s bold example of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) effective since January 2020, Virginia recently … Continue Reading
In 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which provides for an expansive array of privacy rights and obligations, was enacted. At the time, it was reasonable to wonder whether California’s bold example would catalyze similar activity in other states. It’s clear now that it has. Virginia recently passed its own robust privacy law, the … Continue Reading
The 11th Circuit recently weighed in on the hottest issue in data breach litigation, whether a demonstration of actual harm is required to have standing to sue. Joining several other circuit courts, the 11th Circuit in Tsao v. Captiva MVP Rest. Partners, concluded that the plaintiff had failed to allege either that the data breach … Continue Reading
On Tuesday, March 2nd, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed into law the Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA), officially joining California as the second state with a comprehensive consumer privacy law, intended to enhance privacy rights and consumer protection for state residents. We provide an in-depth analysis of the CDPA here, along with legislative activity in … Continue Reading
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) named University of Michigan Associate Professor Kevin Fu Acting Director of Medical Device Security in its Center for Devices and Radiological Health. This is a newly created 12-month post in which Fu will “work to bridge the gap between medicine and computer science and help manufacturers protect medical … Continue Reading
Virginia may be the first state to follow California’s lead on consumer privacy legislation, but it certainly will not be the last. The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) observed, “State-Level momentum for comprehensive privacy bills is at an all-time high.” The IAPP maintains a map of state consumer privacy legislative activity, with in-depth analysis comparing key provisions. … Continue Reading
The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), passed in November, 2020, added to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) an express obligation for covered businesses to adopt reasonable security safeguards to protect personal information. The CPRA also clarified the CCPA’s private right of action for consumers whose personal information is breached due to a failure to implement … Continue Reading
For the past several years, thousands of businesses have been hit with phishing scams during tax season. Through these social engineering scams, hackers obtain employee Forms W-2 for filing fraudulent tax returns seeking large refunds. These phishing emails are typically sent as clients begin the process of issuing W-2s to employees. Often employers do not … Continue Reading
Enacted in 2008, the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14 et seq. (the “BIPA”), went largely unnoticed until a few years ago when a handful of cases sparked a flood of class action litigation over the collection, use, storage, and disclosure of biometric information. Seeing thousands of class action lawsuits, organizations have reevaluated … Continue Reading
In recent years, there has been an uptick of W-2 phishing scams, and their consequences for an employer extend well beyond leaked data, including potential employee class action litigation. Just last week, a federal court in Illinois rejected a motion for class certification in a data breach case alleging disclosure of employees’ sensitive tax information … Continue Reading
Federal contractors know all too well the list of annual requirements and obligations can seem overwhelming at times. One that may get overlooked by some is annual training requirements. A fairly new such training went into effect in 2017 – it requires certain federal contractors to do annual data privacy training. According to the U.S. … Continue Reading
In honor of Data Privacy Day, we provide the following “Top 10 for 2021.” While the list is by no means exhaustive, it does provide some hot topics for organizations to consider in 2021. COVID-19 privacy and security considerations. During 2020, COVID-19 presented organizations large and small with new and unique data privacy and security … Continue Reading
As employers continue to grapple with a safe return to the workplace, on January 21, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued new guidance for businesses and employers on SARS-CoV-2 testing of employees, as part of a more comprehensive approach to reducing transmission of the virus in non-healthcare workplaces. While the CDC … Continue Reading
On December 8th, the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), which represents over 45,000 in-house counsel across 85 countries, announced the launch of its Data Steward Program (DSP) to help organizations and their law firms assess and share information about information security relating to client data. The DSP is two years in the making, collecting input … Continue Reading
The CCPA has reached the one-year mark. This is a good time for businesses to review the success of their compliance programs and recalibrate for the CCPA’s second year. Here are a few suggestions to kick off that review: Privacy Policies. The CCPA requires a business to update the information in its privacy policy or … Continue Reading
Dubbed the “Biometric Privacy Act,” New York Assembly Bill 27 (“BPA”) is virtually identical to the Biometric Information Privacy Act in Illinois, 740 ILCS 14 et seq. (BIPA). Enacted in 2008, BIPA only recently triggered thousands of class actions in Illinois. If the BPA is enacted in New York, it likely will not take as … Continue Reading
Setting up that new IoT device you received for Christmas? Maybe you’ve been derelict in feeding the dog and found a smart dog feeder under the tree, one that will alert you that Luna has been fed or that you have to refill the feeder. Smart gizmos are not just for the home, approximately 25% … Continue Reading
One of the last things pension plan participants would want to learn as they get ready to celebrate the Christmas holiday is that personal data from their pension accounts may have been compromised. This is the case, unfortunately, for approximately 30,000 Now:Pensions customers whose names, postal and email addresses, birth dates and the equivalent of … Continue Reading
In April of this year, which seems far longer than eight months ago, we posted about an alert from federal agencies warning that cyber threat actors were exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to fuel phishing and other attacks. Those efforts have continued throughout the year with attackers now retooling their messaging around the COVID-19 vaccine. Criminal … Continue Reading
On December 10, 2020, the California Department of Justice (“Department”) announced a fourth set of modifications to the California Consumer Privacy Act’s (CCPA) regulations. The deadline to submit comments to the modifications is Monday, December 28, 2020. As a quick recap of past developments related to the CCPA regulations, the Department first published proposed regulations … Continue Reading
A new report released by Global Market Insights, Inc. last month estimates that the global market valuation for voice recognition technology will reach approximately $7 billion by 2026, in main part due to the surge of AI and machine learning across a wide array of devices including smartphones, healthcare apps, banking apps and connected cars, … Continue Reading
On November 3, 2020, Californians approved another significant piece of privacy rights legislation, the California Privacy Rights Act, or the CPRA. The CPRA amends and expands the already (almost) infamous CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), which is the privacy law that went into effect in the Golden State last year. New Rights under CPRA The … Continue Reading
Already at the cutting edge of U.S. privacy law, California jumped even further ahead of the pack with the recent approval by State voters of the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”). The CPRA, which builds upon the already extensive framework of privacy rights and obligations established in the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), is likely … Continue Reading
