Privacy & Cybersecurity

Just before the end of 2010, both the Commerce Department (here) and the Federal Trade Commission released their agencies' respective proposals for privacy frameworks in the United States.

Yesterday, the Department of Commerce published a notice in the Federal Register, seeking feedback on proposals in its recently-unveiled privacy report.

Since March 1, 2010, privacy professionals have been waiting for a data breach that could bring an enforcement action under 201 CMR 17.00, the Massachusetts privacy regulations. I just spoke with Paul Roberts, editor of threatpost.com, a blog that posted an entry yesterday regarding a breach that could do just that.  

In last week's Privacy Report , the Federal Trade Commission posed a series of questions, soliciting comment and discussion from stakeholders to better inform its final report on the subject, due to be issued mid-2011.

In all the flurry of privacy-related issues over the last few weeks, a deadline has been slowly creeping up......remember the Red Flags Rule?  

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has just released its long-awaited (and 123-page long) report on consumer privacy: "Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: A Proposed Framework for Businesses and Policymakers"  (the "Report").

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has reached a settlement with EchoMetrix over charges that it failed to inform parents that information it was collecting about their children would be disclosed to third-party marketers. 

Recently, a California state appellate court in Cutler v. Dike, No. B210624, 2010 WL 3341663 (Cal. Ct. App. Aug. 26, 2010), upheld a jury finding that an employer illegally fired an employee because he objected to the manner in which his employer maintained its confidential patient information.

Back on July 1, we blogged in this space about a very large data breach experienced by health insurer WellPoint. According to WellPoint, over 470,000 individual insurance customers may have been affected by a breach that went unreported for over five months. 

Recently, a news bulletin in Health Data Management  highlighted the point that many security experts are trying to make these days: Encryption is not always a "safe harbor."

It’s a distressingly common scenario. A corporate laptop containing job applicant data, including social security numbers, is stolen from an employee who has taken the laptop off of corporate premises. Access to the social security numbers makes it possible for wrongdoers to engage in identity theft.

On July 13, Mintz Levin will be joined by Sophos, Six Weight Consulting, and MFA Cornerstone Consulting to hold a free compliance workshop focused on both the gaps and overlap of Massachusetts’ data protection regulation 201 CMR 17.oo and the recent updates to federal health and medical data privacy found in the HITECH Act.

At the urging of congressional lawmakers, the Federal Trade Commission has for the fifth time delayed enforcement of the “Red Flags” Rule – this time through December 31, 2010. In the interim, Congress plans to consider legislation that would alter the scope of entities covered under the Rule.

Anthem Blue Cross is notifying approximately 230,000 members and applicants for individual health insurance of a breach involving a web site used by individuals to apply for insurance and track the status of their applications.

It’s been a while since we have visited the Federal Trade Commission’s Red Flags Rule here in this blog. The oft-postponed deadline is now fast approaching on June 1. Except, that is, for lawyers and now, doctors.

Symposium on Privacy and Innovation
Tomorrow, the Commerce Department is hosting a day-long symposium called “A Dialogue on Privacy and Innovation.” It will include several panel discussions to discuss stakeholder views and to facilitate further public discussion on privacy policy in the United States.

A Connecticut woman has filed a charge of discrimination under the Federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act ("GINA"), which prohibits discrimination against employees based upon their status as carriers of genetic information.

Brokerage firm DA Davidson has agreed to pay a fine of $375,000 for failing to protect confidential client data from Latvian hackers who breached the company in 2007 in an online extortion scheme and the three have pleaded guilty in Montana.

Our Friday afternoon feature --
Virginia Adds Medical Information Breach Law - The Commonwealth of Virginia has amended its data breach notification law to include breaches of medical information.

The decision we blogged about in this space last week is creating quite a bit of buzz in both privacy and employment law circles. My employment law colleagues in our New York office have authored an analysis of the decision here: Employment Alert: New Jersey Supreme Court Finds Privacy Rights in Employee E-Mails