Privacy, Data and CybersecurityBlog Posts
DOL Issues Cybersecurity Best Practices for ERISA Covered Retirement PlansToday, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) issued much anticipated cybersecurity guidance for employee retirement plans. This comes more than four and a half years after the ERISA Advisory Council, a 15-member body appointed by the Secretary of Labor to provide guidance on employee benefit plans, shared with the federal Department of...… Continue ReadingApril 14, 2021 |
COVID-19 Vaccination: Setting Up An On-site ProgramThe Biden administration reportedly has called for all people at least 18 to be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by April 19, 2021, two weeks earlier than its prior goal of May 1, and less than a week away. Most states have already done so. Without the barriers created by state-by-state priority rules, the rate...… Continue ReadingApril 13, 2021 |
5 Key Data Privacy and Security Risks That Arise When Organizations Record Job Interviews & Strategies for Mitigating ThemCOVID-19 drove many formerly in-person interactions onto a variety of video conferencing platforms. But as millions of vaccinations are administered each day, and case numbers decline, it’s now possible to imagine and plan for the time when conducting business over video will no longer be mandatory. For many organizations, though, COVID-19 has led to an...… Continue ReadingApril 13, 2021 |
Utah is the 2nd State to Create a Safe Harbor for Companies Facing Data Breach LitigationIn mid-March, Utah Governor Spencer Cox signed into law the Cybersecurity Affirmative Defense Act (HB80) (“the Act”), an amendment to Utah’s data breach notification law, creating several affirmative defenses for persons (defined below) facing a cause of action arising out of a breach of system security, and establishing the requirements for asserting such a defense....… Continue ReadingApril 7, 2021 |
Travel 2.0: Vaccine Passports and Visas—What’s Next on the HorizonOne of industries perhaps hardest hit by the coronavirus, the travel industry, received welcomed news late last week in the form of CDC guidance stating that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can resume domestic travel and do not need to get tested for COVID-19 before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel. According to the...… Continue ReadingApril 5, 2021 |
Supreme Court Issues Monumental TCPA DecisionIn a decision certain to have significant impact on Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class action litigation, today the U.S. Supreme Court concluded narrowly that to qualify as an “automatic telephone dialing system”, a device must be able to either “store a telephone number using a random or sequential generator or to produce a telephone...… Continue ReadingApril 1, 2021 |
Indiana Prohibits Employers from Mandating Device Implantations for EmployeesOn March 11th, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law HB 1143, prohibiting employers from requiring a candidate for employment or an employee to have a device implanted or otherwise incorporated into their body, as a condition of employment. The Indiana law will take effect July 1, 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many companies to...… Continue ReadingApril 1, 2021 |
Colorado Introduces a Comprehensive Consumer Privacy BillColorado recently become the latest state to consider a comprehensive consumer privacy law. On March 19, 2021, Colorado State Senators Rodriguez and Lundeen introduced SB 21-190, entitled “an Act Concerning additional protection of data relating to personal privacy”. Following California’s bold example of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) effective since January 2020, Virginia recently...… Continue ReadingMarch 30, 2021 |
Small NJ Medical Practice Becomes 18th Target of OCR’s HIPAA Right of Access Enforcement InitiativeA small New Jersey plastic surgery practice, Village Plastic Surgery (“VPS”), has become the eighteenth HIPAA covered entity to face an enforcement action under the Office for Civil Right’s HIPAA Right of Access Initiative. According to the OCR’s announcement, VPS agreed to a two-year corrective action plan and pay $30,000 to settle a potential HIPAA...… Continue ReadingMarch 30, 2021 |
Does the Workers’ Compensation Act Bar BIPA Claims? Illinois Supreme Court Will Weigh InThe Illinois Supreme Court recently agreed to hear an appeal of an Appellate Court’s decision addressing whether an employee’s claim for damages under Illinois’s Biometric Information Protection Act is preempted by the exclusivity provisions of the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act (“IWCA”). Back in September, the Illinois Appellate Court for the First Judicial District held that employees’ BIPA...… Continue ReadingMarch 26, 2021 |