A recent study surveying small and mid sized businesses (SMBs) found that 67% had experienced a cyber attack in 2018, and yet that same study found that cybersecurity is still “not on the to do list” for SMBs – 60% of the SMBs surveyed responded that they did not have a cybersecurity plan in place,
Maya Atrakchi
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New York Enacts the SHIELD Act
On Thursday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act (SHIELD Act), sponsored by Senator Kevin Thomas and Assemblymember Michael DenDekker. The SHIELD Act, which amends the State’s current data breach notification law, imposes more expansive data security and data breach notification requirements on companies, in…
Maine and Nevada Sign into Law Consumer Privacy Laws
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which goes into effect January 1, 2020, is considered the most robust state privacy law in the United States. The CCPA seems to have spurred a flood of similar legislative proposals on the state level, and started a shift in the consumer privacy law landscape. Many of these proposals…
U.S. Supreme Court Leaves Open the Issue of FCC Interpretation of TCPA, For Now
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its long awaited decision in PDR Network LLC v. Carlton, addressing the issue of whether the Hobbs Act requires the district court to accept the 2006 Federal Communication Commission (FCC) Order 2006 (“the Order”), which provides the legal interpretation for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Unfortunately, the Court…
New York Considers Aggressive Consumer Privacy Law
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which goes into effect January 1, 2020, is considered the most robust state privacy law in the United States. The CCPA seems to have spurred a flood of similar legislative proposals on the state level, and it was only a matter of time before the Empire State introduced its…
Vermont Court Finds Patient Can Sue Hospital and an Employee for Breach of Confidentiality
By Jason C. Gavejian & Maya Atrakchi on
Posted in Consumer Privacy, HIPAA
In a landmark ruling, the Vermont Supreme Court recently held that a patient had standing to sue both the hospital at which she was a patient and the employee who attended to her, for negligent disclosure of her personal health information to a third-party. Neither the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) nor Vermont…
Senate Committee Blocks CCPA Bill to Expand Private Right of Action
The California Senate Appropriations Committee recently blocked a bill that would expand a private right of action under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). As we reported, in late February, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson introduced Senate Bill 561, legislation intended to strengthen and clarify the CCPA. Then in April…
County in PA Faces up to $68 Million in Privacy Related Damages
No industry or sector is immune to privacy or security issues. This week a jury in a district court in Pennsylvania awarded $1,000 to each of the 68,000 class members who claimed that Bucks County, a county just outside Philadelphia, and several other municipal entities, violated state law by making their criminal records public, in…
District Court Finds no CFAA Violation where Employee Shares Confidential Company Information with Competitor
By Jason C. Gavejian & Maya Atrakchi on
A district court in Tennessee recently concluded in Wachter Inc. v. Cabling Innovations LLC that two former employees who allegedly shared confidential company information found on the company’s computer system with a competitor did not violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The CFAA expressly prohibits “intentionally accessing a computer without authorization or exceeding…
New Jersey’s Data Breach Notification Amendment Signed into Law
On May 10, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law P.L.2019, c.95. an amendment enhancing New Jersey’s data breach notification law by expanding the definition of personal information, and updating notification requirements. As we previously reported, the amendment was unanimously approved by the New Jersey General Assembly and Senate in late February.
New Jersey’s data…