Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

With just under one year to go before the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) becomes law across the European Union, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) has continued its efforts to help businesses prepare for the new law. The ICO also has taken steps to address its own role post-Brexit.

On May 16, 2017, the Governor of the State of Washington, Jay Inslee, signed into law House Bill 1493 (“H.B. 1493”), which sets forth requirements for businesses who collect and use biometric identifiers for commercial purposes. The law will become effective on July 23, 2017. With the enactment of H.B. 1493, Washington becomes the third state to pass legislation regulating the commercial use of biometric identifiers. Previously, both Illinois and Texas enacted the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (740 ILCS 14) (“BIPA”) and the Texas Statute on the Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier (Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. §503.001), respectively.

On May 25, 2017, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed into law H.B. 2090, which updates Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act by holding companies liable for making misrepresentations on their websites (e.g., in privacy policies) or in their consumer agreements about how they will use, disclose, collect, maintain, delete or dispose of consumer information. Pursuant to H.B. 2090, a company engages in an unlawful trade practice if it makes assertions to consumers regarding the handling of their information that are materially inconsistent with its actual practices. Consumers can ...

On May 26, 2017, the Belgian Privacy Commission (the “Belgian DPA”) published its Annual Activity Report for 2016 (the “Annual Report”) highlighting its main accomplishments from the past year.

On May 29, 2017, a high-level EU Commission official and Politico reported that the primary objective of the first annual joint review of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield (“Privacy Shield”) is not to obtain more concessions from the U.S. regarding Europeans’ privacy safeguards, but rather to monitor the current U.S. administration’s work and steer U.S. privacy debates to prevent privacy safeguards from deteriorating. On March 31, 2017, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, announced that the joint review will take place in September 2017.

On May 24, 2017, the Bavarian Data Protection Authority (“DPA”) published a questionnaire to help companies assess their level of implementation of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).  

On May 23, 2017, various attorneys general of 47 states and the District of Columbia announced that they had reached an $18.5 million settlement with Target regarding the states’ investigation of the company’s 2013 data breach. This represents the largest multi-state data breach settlement achieved to date.

On May 22, 2017, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced that the AG’s office has reached a settlement (the “Settlement”) with Safetech Products LLC (“Safetech”) regarding the company’s sale of insecure Bluetooth-enabled wireless doors and padlocks. In a press release, Schneiderman indicated that this “marks the first time an attorneys general’s office has taken legal action against a wireless security company for failing to protect their [customers’] personal and private information.”

On May 19, 2017, the Cyberspace Administration of China (“CAC”) issued a revised draft (the “Revised Draft”) of its Measures for the Security Assessment of Outbound Transmission of Personal Information and Critical Data. The original draft was issued in April 2017, and similar to the original draft, the Revised Draft does not have the impact of law; it does, however, provide an indication of how the CAC’s views on the Cybersecurity Law have evolved since the publication of the original draft. The Revised Draft was issued after the CAC received comments on the original draft from numerous parties.

On May 10, 2017, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) announced a $2.4 million civil monetary penalty against Memorial Hermann Health System (“MHHS”) for alleged violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) Privacy Rule.