Photo of Joseph J. Lazzarotti

Joseph J. Lazzarotti

Subscribe to Joseph J. Lazzarotti's Posts

Joseph J. Lazzarotti is a principal in the Tampa, Florida, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. He founded and currently co-leads the firm's Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity practice group, edits the firm’s Privacy Blog, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Trained as an employee benefits lawyer, focused on compliance, Joe also is a member of the firm’s Employee Benefits practice group.

In short, his practice focuses on the matrix of laws governing the privacy, security, and management of data, as well as the impact and regulation of social media. He also counsels companies on compliance, fiduciary, taxation, and administrative matters with respect to employee benefit plans.

Contact:Read more about Joseph J. Lazzarotti

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) continues to be active in its review of employer social media policies. In recent years, the NLRB’s review of social media policies has focused largely on whether an employee would reasonably construe the language of the policy as prohibiting him or her from engaging in activity protected by Section…

According to an FTC press release, identity theft tops the national ranking of consumer complaints for 2013, with American consumers losing a reported $1.6 billion to fraud last year. Here is how some of the numbers break down:

  • Fourteen (14) percent of the more than two million complaints to the FTC (or 290,056) stemmed

…

On Thursday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced heightened enforcement concerning data breaches, reports USAToday. AG Harris’ office also issued a Guide that provides recommendations to California businesses, particularly small businesses, to help them protect against and respond to the increasing threat of malware, data breaches and other cyber risks.

The circumstances are certainly…

A significant percentage of “recycled” computers were found to still contain personal information, according to a study conducted by the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID). As reported in e-Place Solutions, the NAID-ANZ Secondhand Hard Drive Study, found that “15 of 52 hard drives randomly purchased contained highly confidential personal information.”…

The Department of Health and Human Services announced on February 24 that it is seeking information about conducting a pre-audit survey. That is, it plans to conduct a “survey of up to 1200 [HIPAA] covered entities (health plans, health care clearinghouses, and certain health care providers) and business associates (entities that provider certain services to…

Smartphone privacy and security concerns continue to weigh on businesses, particularly for companies in certain industries such as healthcare, and for those that have or are thinking of moving to a “bring your own device” (BYOD) model. Promoters of the “Blackphone,” according to a Reuters report, hope that their version of Google’s Android…

After years of identity theft holding the top spot for crimes reported to the Federal Trade Commission, and following recent reports of massive data breaches, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urged Congress today to enact a national law setting a uniform standard for notifying individuals regarding breaches involving their personal information, according to a report…

Ask the average person what they know about Bitcoin and they might be able to tell you that it is a digital currency. Most have probably heard the name mentioned in articles about its giant fluctuations in value or in connection with black market internet transactions. Beyond that, how Bitcoin actually operates remains relatively unknown…

Healthcare providers and their business associates frequently face difficult questions relating to when they are able to share protected health information with the family members and friends of the patients they serve. These questions often require consideration of a number of different laws and rules, such as HIPAA, Federal alcohol and drug abuse confidentiality regulations,…

Ricardo Rivera Cardona of the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration, intending to send a message by imposing the largest penalty to date ($6.8 million) arising out of a breach of protected health information under HIPAA, as reported by Infomation Security Media Group, is quoted as saying:

We are sending a message that we are

…