In October 2018, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) published a report that summarized discussions at a December 2017 workshop discussing the potential impact to consumers of privacy and security incidents. The purpose of the workshop was to explore whether government intervention in this arena is warranted under the enforcement authority granted to the FTC under the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 41 et seq.
The report reveals that the workshop participants identified several types of potential impacts that they believe consumers may face in the wake of a data security incident that could warrant [...] Read more
Alston & Bird recently issued an advisory entitled, “Applying GDPR Process Lessons to the CCPA,” authored by Jim Harvey and Karen Sanzaro. The recently and hastily adopted California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) has already been compared to the General Data Protection Act (GDPR), though the two greatly differ in scope and content. However, there are valuable insights to glean from the GDPR adoption process that can give companies a heads start on implementing the CCPA. The advisory examines these five lessons from which companies can learn:
Leadership and multidisciplinary [...] Read more
On September 23, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1121, the amendment to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). SB 1121 attempts to clean up some drafting errors and ambiguities in the original legislation (AB 375), but it also effectively reduces the procedural obstacles to the CCPA’s private right of action by removing the requirement that a plaintiff first notify the Attorney General before filing a lawsuit pursuant to the CCPA, which would have provided the Attorney General the opportunity to order a plaintiff not to proceed. For a more in-depth analysis of the private right of […] Read more
While it remains to be seen what the final text of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) looks like when it is ultimately implemented on January 1, 2020, at present it seems likely that businesses and employers can expect an influx of lawsuits from individual consumers proceeding under the CCPA’s private right of action. Under the current version of the CCPA, the Act provides a private right of action for consumers whose personal information “is subject to an unauthorized access and exfiltration, theft, or disclosure as a result of the business’ violation of the duty to implement and […] 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
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
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
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