On January 9, 2017, lawmakers in the House re-introduced legislation, the Email Privacy Act, which, if enacted, would require the government to obtain a court-issued warrant to access electronic communications, including emails and social networking messages, from cloud providers (e.g., Google, Yahoo) when such communications are older than 180 days. Current law, the Electronic
Top 10 for 2017 – Happy Data Privacy Day
In honor of Data Privacy Day, we provide the following “Top 10 for 2017.” While the list is by no means exhaustive, it does provide some hot topics for organizations to consider in 2017.
1. Phishing Attacks and Ransomware – Phishing, as the name implies, is the attempt, usually via email, to obtain sensitive or
A New Kind of Employee Badge – Monitoring, Analytics and More
It is not uncommon for employers to assign badges to their employees to grant access to certain locations on the employer’s property and parking garages. Many employees have them, use them, lose them and think little of them. But, badges made by Humanyze are so much more, raising concerns from privacy advocates and others. According
Claim For Violation of Wiretap Act Not A Slam Dunk under Spokeo
A motion to dismiss has been filed in a California case filed by a New York woman who claims that the National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (the “Wiretap Act”), 18 U.S.C. § 2510, et seq., by distributing a mobile content app that invades users’ privacy by turning
Yelling at Your Smartphone Could Get You Fired!
Michael Schrage at Harvard Business Review warns his readers, “Stop swearing at Siri. Quit cursing Cortana,” arguing such behavior could soon be seen just as destructive to an organization as ridiculing a subordinate. In the 1993 film, Demolition Man, Sylvester Stallone’s character, John Spartan, received multiple tickets from a wall box that overheard him
Facebook’s “Trending” Section and Human Resources Analytics
According to a recent New York Times article, “Facebook scrambled on Monday to respond to a new and startling line of attack: accusations of political bias.” Slate followed with a report that the online social networking giant became the subject of a United States Senate inquiry, with Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune wanting information about
Use Of Personal Cloud-Based Document Accounts Requires New Strategies By Employers
Whether Google Docs, Dropbox, or some other file sharing system, employees, especially millennials and other digital natives, are increasingly likely to set up personal cloud-based document sharing and storage accounts for work purposes, usually with well-meaning intentions, such as convenience and flexibility. Sometimes this is done with explicit company approval, sometimes it is done with
European Commission Unveils EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (Update)
Earlier today, the European Commission (the Commission) issued a draft “adequacy decision” as well as the texts that will constitute the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (the Privacy Shield). This includes the Privacy Shield Principles companies have to abide by, as well as written commitments by the U.S. Government on the enforcement of the arrangement,
March Monitoring Madness and Monitoring Methods
As NCAA basketball tournament season approaches, employers may be wondering if they can monitor employees at work to see how much time they are spending checking their brackets, or for other purposes. There are many reasons companies monitor employees, including boosting productivity, dissuading cyber-slacking or social “not-working,” protecting trade secrets and confidential business information, preventing
Top 10 for 2016 – Happy Data Privacy Day
In honor of Data Privacy Day, we provide the following “Top 10 for 2016.” While the list is by no means exhaustive, it does provide some hot topics for organizations to consider in 2016.
- EU/U.S. Data Transfer (status of Safe Harbor). On October 6, 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled