The California legislature recently passed AB 713 which is an amendment to the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA). This bill will take effect immediately on September 30, 2020 once Governor Gavin Newsom signs the legislation. The effect of AB 713 is that it adds Section 1798.146 to the CCPA, and states that the … Continue Reading
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced yesterday that it has settled five investigations in its HIPAA “Rights to Access” Initiative (Initiative), which OCR had stated would be an enforcement priority for it starting in 2019. The Initiative is “to support individuals’ right to timely access to their health records at a reasonable cost under … Continue Reading
The California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) recently qualified for the November 2020 ballot, and if California voters approve this initiative, the CPRA will expand the rights of California residents under the current (stringent) California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), beginning on January 1, 2023. So what will change under the CPRA? Creation of the California Privacy … Continue Reading
In Coral Gables, Florida, a judge refused to dismiss a lawsuit over the city’s use of automated license plate readers to scan license plates. This technology has faced a number of lawsuits over concerns about the collection and storage of data. The Coral Gables lawsuit stemmed from a Miami suburb resident who filed a request … Continue Reading
Ballot Question 1 in Massachusetts, if passed in November, would require car manufacturers that sell cars equipped with telematics systems (i.e., a method of monitoring a vehicle by combining a GPS system with on-board diagnostics to record – and map – exactly where a car is and how fast it’s traveling, etc.) to install a … Continue Reading
We have previously alerted our readers about the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), which went into effect on January 1, 2020. CCPA is one of the strictest consumer privacy laws in the U.S. and is broadly applicable [view related posts]. Although CCPA went into effect on January 1, 2020, enforcement by the California Attorney General … Continue Reading
As many states continue to reopen businesses and permit more gatherings, public health officials are looking to contact tracing as a key strategy for preventing further spread of COVID-19. In contact tracing, public health staff work with patients who have suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection to help them recall everyone with whom they had close … Continue Reading
The California Attorney General submitted the final proposed California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations on June 1, 2020 to the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for review. According to the Attorney General’s submission, OAL has thirty working days to review the regulations, plus an additional sixty calendar days under the Governor’s Executive Order N-40-20 … Continue Reading
The consumer group Californians for Consumer Privacy announced on May 4, 2020, that it was submitting well over 900,000 signatures to qualify the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) for the November 2020 ballot. This new ballot initiative, which can be reviewed here, creates some additional consumer privacy rights and expands some areas already included in … Continue Reading
The transition from work-from-the-office to work-from-home has been rapid during the pandemic. All of a sudden, millions of workers are working from home, while data security personnel were not able to plan and operationalize the transition in an optimal way. Many security measures are being put in place now as everyone settles into the new … Continue Reading
Kids are at home all day now, remote learning and surfing the web more than ever before. Parents are working from home too, and understandably are not always able to monitor and supervise their children’s computer use as much as they should or would like to. Scammers, fraudsters and evil doers know this and are … Continue Reading
Recently businesses and advertising trade groups wrote a letter to the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to request delayed enforcement of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The letter cited the current health crisis as a result of COVID-19 and a state of national emergency as the … Continue Reading
On March 11, 2020, the California Attorney General released the second set of modifications to the draft California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations. This set of modifications contains deletions to language that was included in the February modifications to the regulations as well as some new language. Notable changes include the deletions of the “do … Continue Reading
The COVID-19 virus is having an unprecedented effect on all aspects of our daily lives, and has hit the educational system especially hard with forced closures and cancellations. Because educational institutions play such a vital role in our communities, the Department of Education (DOE) recently issued guidance in the form of Frequently Asked Questions (Guidance) … Continue Reading
On March 5, 2020, Vermont Governor Phil Scott signed into law Senate Bill 110, “An act relating to data privacy and consumer protection,” which provides authority to develop a statewide data privacy inventory of the personally identifiable information (PII) that the state collects from and maintains of its citizens. According to the bill, the data … Continue Reading
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) requested an audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of Medicare Part D eligibility verification transactions (E1) transactions. The OIG recently released its report which found that the majority of the providers evaluated used E1 transactions for some inappropriate purpose other than to bill for a … Continue Reading
Washington legislators recently introduced the Washington Privacy Act (WPA). This legislation is a consumer-focused privacy law similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) but it also has some European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)-like concepts. The WPA protects personal data in much the same way as the CCPA, but with some significant differences. … Continue Reading
On February 10, 2020, the California Attorney General’s Office released modified California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations. There are some notable differences in the regulations from the first draft, which can be seen in this redlined version. This article will highlight some of the new language added in the latest draft of the regulations. What’s … Continue Reading
California has a privacy law that took effect on January 1, 2020, and it’s not the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). This new privacy law regulates Internet of Things (IoT)-connected devices. SB 327 was enacted in 2018 and became effective on January 1, 2020. The California IoT law requires manufacturers of connected devices to equip … Continue Reading
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said last week that “knowledge is power, and in today’s world knowledge is derived from data. When it comes to your own data, you should be in control…” These words came in an Advisory highlighting California consumers’ rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The Advisory outlined several areas … Continue Reading
After much anticipation and trepidation, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect on January 1, 2020. Many companies are understandably still grappling with the details of the law, the amendments, and the proposed regulations and how to comply with them. If you have not determined whether the CCPA applies to your company, and … Continue Reading
Last week, Veritas Genetics, a consumer-facing DNA testing company, suffered a security breach affecting customer information in its database. Veritas offers whole-genome sequencing to consumers for $599. The security incident affected its customer portal, which Veritas said does not contain genetic data, DNA test results or health records. How did that information remain protected from … Continue Reading
More than a year ago, in April 2018, police announced that they had used a new investigative technique to arrest a man known as the Golden State Killer. For the first time, the police submitted DNA from a crime scene into a consumer DNA database, where the information in that database about distant relatives helped … Continue Reading
Would you hand over your smartphone, including your call history, text messages, photos, GPS locations, and browser history to your employer? To your significant other? How about to a random stranger? I’m guessing your answer is an overwhelming “No” to each of these questions. Stalkerware and stalking apps do just that. Both are spyware that … Continue Reading
