September 4, 2018 marks the end of the transitional period for covered entities to comply with several key provisions of the NYDFS Cybersecurity Requirements that require certain systemic and sustained measures. These provisions include the encryption and audit trail requirements as well as ones relating to the implementation of monitoring policies, procedures, and controls, application security, and data retention limitations.
Encryption (500.15): The regulation requires covered entities to encrypt Nonpublic Information held or transmitted by a covered entity both in transit over external [...] Read more
On Friday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its “finalized amendments” to Regulation P, an implementing regulation of the federal financial Gramm Leach Bliley Act. Regulation P governs the provision of privacy notices for covered financial institutions. In response to legislation passed by Congress in late 2015, the final rule issued Friday permits financial institutions to avoid providing annual privacy notices to customers in certain circumstances. In addition, in cases where the annual notice requirement remains, the final rule permits financial institutions additional [...] Read more
Save the date! On Sept. 12, 1 – 2 PM ET, Alston & Bird will host a webinar to analyze the new California Consumer Privacy Act. (You can read our prior advisory.) The California Consumer Privacy Act has been compared to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation due to its creation of important new privacy rights likely to require significant compliance activity by many companies. Partners Jim Harvey, David Keating, and Senior Counsel Peter Swire will lead discussion of this comprehensive new legislation currently slated to enter into force in less than 18 months.
Registration [...] Read more
On July 17, the European Commission (the “Commission”) announced that the European Union and Japan successfully concluded talks on reciprocal adequacy and agreed to recognize each other's data protection systems as equivalent. In its press release, the Commission explains that this adequacy agreement will create “the world's largest area of safe transfers of data based on a high level of protection for personal data.”
The General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) came into effect as of May 25 of this year. Under the GDPR, “adequacy” is the simplest way for companies to [...] Read more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently issued its opinion in LabMD, Inc. v. FTC, No. 16-16270 (11th Cir. June 6, 2018), declaring unenforceable a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) order requiring LabMD to implement an extensive cybersecurity plan. The case is noteworthy for its lengthy procedural background—during which time LabMD became defunct—and its holding, which has called into question the FTC’s authority to impose wide-ranging, comprehensive cybersecurity plans.
The LabMD matter dates to 2005, when LimeWire file sharing software was installed on a company computer, [...] Read more
On the heels of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs’ (LIBE) recent resolution, the full European Parliament on July 5 adopted a resolution calling for the suspension of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement if the U.S. fails to comply in full by September 1, 2018. With a vote of 303 in favor and 223 opposed with 29 abstentions, the Parliament passed the resolution and stated concerns about the enforcement of the Privacy Shield framework and about U.S. surveillance and privacy law generally. Regarding the resolution, LIBE Chair and rapporteur Claude Moraes said “[t]his [...] Read more
Following our June 4 and July 2, 2018 blog posts tracking California's November 2018 ballot measure turned hastily enacted new California privacy law titled The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA), Alston & Bird's Privacy & Data Security Group released a more detailed "first look" review of California’s sweeping new law. The advisory provides an overview of the new law, which establishes an array of privacy rights for state residents and worries for businesses nationwide, and concludes with key initial takeaways for business.
Read the advisory here. [...] Read more
As discussed in this blog’s June 4, 2018 blog post, a group called Californians for Consumer Privacy gathered enough signatures for a new measure called the Consumer Right to Privacy Act to qualify for the November 2018 ballot. With momentum building for passage of that ballot measure, various stakeholders met with California legislators to devise a bill that could be passed in place of the measure (and to the satisfaction of the measure’s backers). The legislature and governor had until last Thursday, June 28 – the deadline for the measure’s backers to remove it from the November’s [...] Read more
Following a two-year grace period, EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entered into force on May 25, 2018. For many companies, preparing for the GDPR was a multi-year project involving multiple teams and input or assistance from across the organization. On this blog, we have outlined the items we have seen as particularly time- or resource-intensive.
On June 29, 2018, the Data Protection Authority (DPA) of the German state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) announced it would be surveying GDPR compliance among companies under its jurisdiction. Germany has 16 state-run DPAs with general [...] Read more
The Supreme Court recently held in Carpenter v. United States that an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in historical cell-site location information (CSLI) that provides a comprehensive view of the individual’s movement. A 5-4 decision, Carpenter marks a significant development for both the third-party doctrine and in the privacy space more generally. Carpenter signals a change in the Court’s traditional view of the third-party doctrine and highlights the ubiquity and all-encompassing nature of CSLI in the process.
The petitioner, Timothy Carpenter, was convicted for his [...] Read more
