Privacy & Information Security Law Blog

On August 8, 2013, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China released its “Opinions Regarding Facilitating Information Consumption and Boosting Domestic Demand” (Guofa [2013] No. 32, the “Opinions”). The Opinions provide guidelines for encouraging the development of the “consumption of information” in the next few years. “Consumption of information” is a recently-coined Chinese term that encompasses the demand for, and possession, processing and reproduction of, information.

On September 4, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with TRENDnet, Inc. (“TRENDnet”) stemming from allegations that TRENDnet’s failure to provide reasonable security for its Internet Protocol (“IP”) security cameras allowed hackers to publicly post online live feeds from approximately 700 customers’ cameras. As the FTC noted in its press release, “this is the agency’s first action against a marketer of an everyday product with interconnectivity to the Internet and other mobile devices – commonly referred to as the ‘Internet of Things.’”

On September 5, 2013, Pew Research Center released a report detailing the results of a new survey that questioned 792 Internet and smartphone users in the United States about their desire for anonymity and issues they have faced regarding privacy and security online. The report indicates that although most Internet users may wish to be anonymous online, they don’t believe complete anonymity is possible.

In recent months, the Chinese government has focused an increasing amount of attention on the protection of personal information. As we previously reported, there have been a number of new data protection regulations in China, including the Decision on Strengthening the Protection of Information on the Internet issued by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in December 2012, and new rules issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology this July to protect personal information collected by telecommunications and Internet service providers. This focus also is illustrated by Shanghai authorities’ recent crackdown on crimes involving personal information.

On September 3, 2013, Hunton & Williams LLP announced that Lisa J. Sotto, head of the firm’s Global Privacy and Cybersecurity practice and managing partner of the New York office, was named among Ethisphere Institute’s “Attorneys Who Matter” for 2013. The annual listing includes lawyers from a range of legal disciplines who surpass their peers based on their experience, public service, legal community engagement and client endorsement. This is the third time Sotto has achieved this ranking.

On August 29, 2013, the FTC announced that it had filed a complaint against LabMD, Inc. (“LabMD”) for failing to protect consumers’ personal data. According to the complaint, LabMD, which performs various laboratory tests for consumers, exposed the personal information of more than 9,000 consumers on a peer-to-peer (“P2P”) file-sharing network. Specifically, a LabMD spreadsheet that was found on the P2P network contained names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, health insurance information and medical treatment codes. In another instance, identity thieves were able to obtain LabMD documents that contained the personal information of more than 500 consumers, including names, Social Security numbers and bank account information.

As reported by Bloomberg BNA, the South African Parliament passed the Protection of Personal Information Bill on August 22, 2013. The bill, which was sent to President Jacob Zuma to be signed into law, represents South Africa’s first comprehensive data protection legislation.

On August 26, 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California approved a settlement with Facebook, Inc., related to the company’s alleged misappropriation of certain Facebook members’ personal information, such as names and profile pictures, that was then used in ads to promote products and services via Facebook’s “Sponsored Stories” program.

On August 28, 2013, the Obama Administration issued several documents relating to the Cybersecurity Framework that the President called for in Executive Order 13636: Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. The documents include:

• Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework (Discussion Draft);
• Preliminary Cybersecurity Framework: Illustrative Examples (Discussion Draft);
• Message to Senior Executives on the Cybersecurity Framework (Discussion Draft);  and
• Cybersecurity Framework Performance Goals (Draft).

On August 28, 2013, on the UK Information Commissioner’s Office’s (“ICO’s”) blog, Simon Rice, Technology Group Manager for the ICO, discussed the importance of encryption as a data security measure. He stated that storing any personal information is “inherently risky” but encryption can be a “simple and effective means” to safeguard personal information and reduce the risk of security breaches.