Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed into law HB 4390 (the “Bill”), which amends the state’s data breach notification law and creates an advisory council tasked with studying and developing recommendations regarding data privacy legislation.

To mark the GDPR’s one-year anniversary, the European Commission recently published the results of two surveys meant to illuminate the public’s awareness of the GDPR and its practical applications.

The Illinois legislature recently passed the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, which prohibits an Illinois employer from using artificial intelligence (“AI”) to evaluate job interview videos unless the employer complies with certain requirements.

On June 20, 2019, the Senate confirmed Keith Krach as Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and Environment. The former DocuSign and Ariba CEO, nominated by President Trump in January of 2019, will function as the permanent ombudsperson for the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement as part of his role, addressing complaints related to U.S. protection of EU data.

On June 14, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it has taken action against a number of companies that allegedly misrepresented their compliance with the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks (collectively, the “Privacy Shield”) and other international privacy agreements.

On June 13, 2019, the Cyberspace Administration of China (the “CAC”) released Draft Measures on Security Assessment of Cross-Border Transfer of Personal Information (“Draft Measures”) for public comment, the window for which ends July 13, 2019.

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich recently announced a settlement with healthcare software provider Medical Informatics Engineering Inc. (“MIE”) and its wholly owned subsidiary NoMoreClipboard, LLC. The settlement resolves a multistate litigation arising out of a May 2015 data breach in which hackers infiltrated WebChart, a web application run by MIE, and stole the electronic Protected Health Information (“ePHI”) of over 3.9 million individuals. Arizona and 15 other states (the “Multistate AGs”) filed the suit in December 2018, asserting claims under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability (“HIPAA”) as well as various applicable state data protection laws. Notably, the lawsuit was the first-ever multistate litigation alleging claims under HIPAA.

On June 12, 2019, the Belgian Data Protection Authority (the “Belgian DPA”) launched a public consultation on direct marketing with a view to updating its Recommendation No. 02/2013 of January 30, 2013 on direct marketing (the “Direct Marketing Recommendation”).

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan recently signed into law House Bill 1154 (the “Bill”), which amends the state’s data breach notification law. Among other obligations, the amendments expand the required actions a business must take after becoming aware of a data security breach.

On May 31, 2019, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (“APEC”) endorsed Schellman & Company as the second U.S. “Accountability Agent” overseeing the APEC Cross-Border Privacy Rules (“CBPR”) and Privacy Recognition for Processors (“PRP”) systems. Along with TrustArc, Schellman & Company will now be able to independently assess and certify the compliance of U.S. companies under the APEC CBPR and PRP systems.