On Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced the fifth enforcement action under its Risk Analysis Initiative. In this case, OCR reached a settlement with Health Fitness Corporation (Health Fitness), a wellness vendor providing services to employer-sponsored group health plans.
This announcement is interesting for several
According to a recent survey, about 45% of companies do not have a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO). As West Monroe’s “The Importance of a CISO” observes, it would be terrific for all organizations to have a CISO, but that simply may not be practical for some, particularly smaller organizations. Recent internal
By now, plan fiduciaries and their service providers likely have heard about the DOL’s cybersecurity guidance. The Department of Labor’s stepping into cybersecurity in this way – a posting of best practices on the agency’s website – has left plan fiduciaries with some questions. Here are a few:
Today, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued much anticipated cybersecurity guidance for employee retirement plans. This comes more than four and a half years after the ERISA Advisory Council, a 15-member body appointed by the Secretary of Labor to provide guidance on employee benefit plans, shared with the federal
A little more than one year ago, we reported on a settlement (Cassell et al. v. Vanderbilt University, et al.) involving the alleged wrongful use of personal information belonging to retirement plan participants, claimed to be “plan assets.” This year, similar claims have been made against Shell Oil Company in connection with its 401(k) plan.
Wrongful use of retirement plan participant data was among the claims made by a class of 40,000 participants against the plan sponsor and others in Cassell et al. v. Vanderbilt University et al. Specifically, the plan participants claimed that the University inter alia breached its “loyalty and prudence” duty by failing to protect confidential employee
It has been reported that infamous bank robber, Slick Willie Sutton, once said, “I rob banks because that’s where the money is.” Data thieves, understandably, have a similar strategy – go where the data is. The retail industry knows this as it has been a popular target for payment card data. The healthcare and certain