California federal Judge William Alsup dismissed various claims against Mint Mobile LLC based on a data breach that exposed personal information of Mint customers. Plaintiff Daniel Fraser alleged that Mint, a mobile virtual network operator using the T-Mobile network infrastructure, was hit with a data breach in June 2021. According to Fraser, the breach resulted in disclosure of his and others’ personal information, including names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, account numbers, and passwords.
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Continue Reading Mint Gets Data Breach Claims Dismissed

Connecticut just joined California, Colorado, Utah, and Virginia in passing a comprehensive privacy law. The Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA) goes into effect July 1, 2023, the same time as Colorado’s very similar law. Companies preparing for these new laws (Virginia goes into effect January 1, 2023 and Utah December 31, 2023) will want to keep in mind the following five things about this fifth general US state privacy law. …
Continue Reading Connecticut Fifth State to Pass a Comprehensive Privacy Law

As we have written in the past, APEC’s Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) program is intended to help companies more easily transfer personal data across borders. Participating companies complete self-assessments and participate with their local countries’ “accountability agent.” There are currently seven participating economies, which include the US, Canada, Japan. Those participating economies recently announced the development of a “Global CBPR Forum.” The Forum is tasked with, inter alia, creating an international certification system, reviewing members’ privacy standards, and ensuring that the program is “interoperable with other data protection and privacy frameworks.”
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Continue Reading Formation of CBPR Forum Signals Continued Movement

The Colorado AG’s office recently released pre-rulemaking considerations for the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA). The office is seeking informal public feedback on a series of topics. While the AG listed eight specific topics for feedback, the public can offer input on any aspect of the upcoming rulemaking. The AG’s office is interested in comments about the universal opt-out, the requirements around consent, and “dark patterns.” The AG is also interested in circumstances triggering data protection assessments and the requirements around profiling. Questions were also posed about “offline” collection of data. Lastly, the office seeks feedback to the rules around opinion letters and about how CPA compares or contrasts to privacy laws in other jurisdictions.
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Continue Reading Colorado AG Seeks Input on Key Aspects of Upcoming Privacy Act

It has been almost two years since the Privacy Shield was struck down as a valid data transfer mechanism in Schrems II. Many have been wondering “what’s next”? Will there be a replacement framework? When will that be released? Will the replacement be invalidated? Well, the European Commission and US recently announced an “agreement in principle” to replace the EU-US Shield Privacy Shield. The EDPB also recently released a statement welcoming the announcement, but reminding companies that the announcement is not actually a legal framework. Thus, nothing has changed… yet.
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Continue Reading Waiting on a new EU-US Privacy Shield

The Virginia privacy law going into effect January 2023 received some minor tweaks this month. In particular, provisions around deletion requests. As originally enacted, the Virginia law mirrored similar provisions in California and Europe, giving individuals the ability to ask for their information to be deleted. As amended, if information that the individual asks to be deleted was obtained “from a source other than the consumer” then the business can treat that deletion request as a request to opt out of targeted advertising, sale, and profiling. The business can also delete the information.
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Continue Reading Virginia Tweaks Its Upcoming Privacy Law

The May 1 change to banks’ cyber-notification process is fast approaching. As we wrote previously the OCC, FDIC, and Federal Reserve Board implemented a final rule under which banks and their service providers must notify their primary federal regulators within 36 hours of certain incidents.  A notification incident that triggers this requirement is defined as a computer security incident that materially disrupts a banking organization’s operations or lines of business. Thus not all incidents will meet these levels. For those that do, banks will need to be prepared. Part of that is having the right points of contact, which include:…
Continue Reading On the Clock: Cyber Incidents Notification Deadline Approaching for Banks

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit recently settled with TickTalk Tech, LLC over its information collection practices. CARU, a self-regulatory body that reaches voluntary settlements with companies, conducts regular audits of privacy practices by companies in the child space. During one such audit, it identified concerns over TickTalk Tech’s kids smart watch, TickTalk4.
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Continue Reading Smart Watch Maker Settles with CARU Over Privacy Policy and Parental Consent

Arizona recently amended its breach notice law to change the regulator notification requirements. Starting this summer, depending on the scope of the incident, the Arizona Department of Homeland Security will need to be notified. Specifically, as amended, if more than 1,000 Arizona individuals are notified of a breach, then notification must be made to the three largest consumer reporting agencies, the Arizona attorney general and the Arizona Department of Homeland Security. Previously, only the consumer reporting agencies and Arizona AG needed to be notified if that threshold was met. This notification should be made within 45 days after the determination that there has been a breach. Arizona joins New York as being one of the few states that require notification to multiple state regulatory agencies.
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Continue Reading Arizona Expands Regulator Data Breach Notification Obligations

Indiana has made a minor amendment to its data breach notification law. Starting July 1, companies who are obligated to notify under the law must do so (to affected individuals and the Indiana Attorney General) without unreasonable delay, but no later than 45 days after discovery of the breach. This changes the current time frame, which is “without unreasonable delay.” Indiana joins many other states that impose a specific timing requirement, in particular no later than 45 days after determining there has been a breach. For example, Alabama, Maryland, Ohio, and Wisconsin (among several others) all require notice to individuals no later than 45 days from discovery.
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Continue Reading Indiana Breach Notification Law Amended, Changes Effective July 1, 2022

President Biden recently signed into law the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 as a part of a larger omnibus appropriations bill.  The new law sets out mandatory reporting requirements for critical infrastructure entities in the event of certain cyber incidents and ransomware payments.  Under the Act, once implementing regulations are issued (which are not expected this year) covered entities will be subject to two new reporting requirements:   …
Continue Reading Cybersecurity Act Signed Into Law Creates New Reporting Obligations