Privacy and security continue to be at the forefront for legislatures across the nation, despite (or perhaps because of) the COVID-19 pandemic.  In late May, with back-to-back amendments, Washington D.C. and Vermont significantly overhauled their data breach notification laws, including expansion of the definition of personal information, and heightened notice requirements.  Now, Michigan may follow

Most companies continue to grapple with compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), which went into effect in January. Companies have overhauled their privacy programs and policies and designed new systems to comply with the CCPA.

Now, the privacy-right activist group that sponsored the CCPA – Californians for Consumer Privacy – is pushing for

The much anticipated California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) is now in effect (as of January 1, 2020), and as we’ve recently reported, class action litigation under the CCPA has already begun.  Organizations should have already assessed whether their business is subject to the new law and if so, taken steps to ensure compliance.  Likely,

Image result for CCPA class actionAs reported by Bloomberg Law, data breach class action litigation has begun under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Filed in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, a putative class action lawsuit against Hanna Andersson, LLC and its ecommerce platform provider, Salesforce.com, alleges negligence and a failure to maintain reasonable safeguards, among

With the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) effective for nearly one month, businesses continue to grapple with the many components of this new privacy framework. A key component of the CCPA is granting consumers the right to request information about and to exercise some control over their personal information. Developing sufficient mechanisms to receive, process

Recently, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued an important opinion, concluding that Cambridge Analytica, LLC, the data analytics and consulting company, engaged in “deceptive practices to harvest personal information” of tens of millions social media users, by way of using their data from a company developed app, GSRapp, for voter profiling purposes without the

When privacy geeks talk “privacy,” it is not uncommon for them to use certain terms interchangeably –personal data, personal information, personally identifiable information, private information, individually identifiable information, protected health information, or individually identifiable health information. They might even speak in acronyms – PI, PII, PHI, NPI, etc. Blurring those distinctions might be OK for

In response to trends, heightened public awareness, and a string of large-scale data breaches, states continue to enhance their data breach notification laws. In 2017, Maryland amended its Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) with expansion of the definition of personal information, modification of the definition of “breach of the security of the system,” establishing a

Several weeks ago, we published a CCPA FAQS on Cookies, which provides a high-level look at how the impending CCPA may apply to website cookies. The CCPA’s definition of personal information is expansive, and in preparation for the CCPA it is easy to overlook certain elements of personal information, in particular website cookies.

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The Washington State Supreme Court ruled recently that state employees’ birthdates associated with their names are not exempt from disclosure pursuant to a freedom of information records request. In so holding, the Court strictly construed the applicable statute that did not expressly exempt birthdates from disclosure. Wash. Pub. Emps. Assn. v. State Ctr for Childhood