In the last month both Vermont and Connecticut updated their existing breach notification statutes, highlighting the need to closely monitor state legislatures, particularly end of session happenings. Each modification highlights the growing trend of states requiring notification to the state's attorney general, under often new compressed timeframes.
Publicly traded businesses now have yet another set of guidelines to follow regarding security risks and incidents. On October 13, 2011 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Division of Corporation Finance released a guidance document that assists registrants in assessing what disclosures should be made in the face of cyber security risks and incidents. The guidance provides an overview of disclosure obligations under current securities laws - some of which, according to the guidance, may require a disclosure of cyber security risks and incidents in financial statements.
Earlier this week we blogged about Senator Blumenthal's (D-CT) proposed Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act of 2011. Today, InfoLawGroup partner Boris Segalis spoke on Fox Live about the advantages of federal information security legislation.
California's infamous SB 1386 (California Civil Code sections 1798.29 and 1798.82) was the very first security breach notification law in the nation in 2002, and nearly every state followed suit. Many states added their own new twists and variations on the theme - new triggers for notification requirements, regulator notice requirements, and content requirements for the notices themselves. Over the years, the California Assembly and Senate have passed numerous bills aimed at amending California's breach notification law to add a regulator notice provision and to require the inclusion of certain content. However, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the bills on multiple occasions, at least three times. Earlier this year, State Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) introduced Senate Bill 24, again attempting to enact such changes. Yesterday, August 31, 2011, Governor Brown signed SB 24 into law.
It is being reported that Moscow prosecutors conducted an investigation into whether several websites that were involved in data breaches earlier this year violated the country's data protection law. As a result of the breaches, names, contact information and order histories of Internet magazine subscribers (including adult-themed publications) became available on Internet search engines, including Russian-language Yandex. Without naming the websites, the report states that the prosecutors have filed administrative charges against two Internet magazines as a result of the investigation.
On July 20, 2011, the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee's Trade Subcommittee approved the Secure and Fortify Electronic Data Act (the "SAFE Data Act"). The Act would require any business that maintains personal information to implement an information security program and notify affected individuals in the event of an information security breach. The SAFE Data Act would preempt the over 45 existing state information security and breach notification laws and task the Federal Trade Commission with developing information security rules implementing the Act.
In what may be a sign of an evolving judicial atmosphere and approach concerning data breach lawsuits, a Federal judge in the Northern District of California District Court recently refused to dismiss various causes of action related to a data breach involving RockYou. In particular, the Court explored the issue of whether the plaintiff sufficiently alleged "harm" arising out of the data breach. This blog post takes a look the highlights of the Court's decision.
As we move into 2011 it should be obvious that cloud computing is not a fad, but rather a computing model that is becoming ubiquitous. Cloud computing offers a slew of advantages including efficiency, instant scalability and cost effectiveness. However, these advantages must be balanced against the control organizations may lose over their information technology operations when they are reliant on a cloud provider to provide key processes. The issues that arise out of this loss of control are apparent when considering data breach response and liability in the cloud. When a cloud customer puts its sensitive data into the cloud it is completely reliant on the security and incident response processes of the cloud service provider in order to respond to a data breach. This situation poses many fundamental problems.
InfoLawGroup recently discovered a new data breach case, one of the first that we are aware of in the United States, that dives deep into the issue of whether a common law duty exists to safeguard personal information. In Cooney, et. al v. Chicago Public Schools, et. al¸ an Illinois appellate court actually rendered a decision holding that no such duty exists under Illinois law. In this blogpost we take a closer look at the court's rationale for dismissing the plaintiffs' negligence claim, as well as the other interesting holdings of the court.
An odd result -- we know. We previously reported on the lawsuit filed by Experi-Metal, Inc. ("EMI") and the subsequent motion for summary judgment (and briefs) filed by Comerica Bank to have the case dismissed. As reported in July, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan has issued a ruling on Comerica's motion for summary judgment. To make a long story short, the Court denied Comerica's motion and this case appears headed toward trial (or potentially settlement). In the course of its ruling the Court found that Comerica had utilized commercially reasonable security procedures. However, that ruling had more to do with the language in Comerica's contracts than an actual substantive analysis of the reasonableness of Comerica's security. In this blogpost, we take a look at the Court's ruling.