In another favorable decision for companies, the Maine Supreme Court ruled on September 21, 2010 that consumers affected by a data breach could not claim damages from the company unless they suffered uncompensated financial losses or some other tangible injury. The Maine Supreme Court addressed the following: In the absence of physical harm or economic loss … Continue reading No Claim For Data Breach Damages Absent Financial Loss or Tangible Injury
Indiana recently enacted a new law which grants authority to the Indiana Office of the Attorney General’s Identity Theft Unit to obtain and secure abandoned records with personally identifying information, including health records, and either destroy them or return them to their owners. Additionally, the new law sets fines and other legal ramifications for violations of … Continue reading Attorney General Securing Personal Data in Indiana
The Supreme Court today issued its decision in City of Ontario, California v. Quon. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the search of Quon’s text messages, sent or received on his department issued pager, was reasonable and did not violate Quon’s Fourth Amendment rights. As set forth in the opinion, the Court did not … Continue reading Supreme Court Issues Decision in City of Ontario v. Quon – Search of Text Messages Held Reasonable, Ninth Circuit Reversed
All information from plaintiffs’ social networking profiles and postings that relate to their general emotions, feelings, and mental states must be produced in discovery when they allege severe emotional trauma and harassment against their employer, a federal court in Indiana has ruled. (EEOC v. Simply Storage Management LLC, S.D. Ind., No. 1:09-cv-1223, discovery order 5/11/10). … Continue reading Employees Claiming Emotional Distress Must Produce Social Network (Facebook and MySpace) Information In Discovery
Keystroke logging (or “keylogging”) is the noting (or logging) of the keys struck on a computer keyboard. Typically, this is done secretly, so the keyboard user is unaware his activities are being monitored. Several cases throughout the country have examined an employer’s use of keylogging. Recently, the Criminal Court of the City of New York held … Continue reading Keylogging–Jurisdictions at Odds Over Privacy Concerns
As highlighted by many news sources, including CNN.com and MSNBC.com, the United States Supreme Court listened to oral argument (pdf) today in the case of City of Ontario v. Quon today. This is the case involving a police officer who claimed his employer violated his privacy when it read the personal text messages (which happened to … Continue reading Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in Texting/Privacy Case — City of Ontario v. Quon
Co-author: Joseph J. Lazzarotti The New Jersey’s highest Court has concluded that an employee, Marina Stengart, could reasonably expect that e-mail communication with her lawyer through her personal, password-protected, web-based e-mail account would remain private, and that sending and receiving them using a company laptop did not eliminate the attorney-client privilege that protected them. The Court … Continue reading New Jersey Supreme Court Rules on Personal E-mail Privacy: Stengart v. Loving Care
Nearly 100 organizations have been notified by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) that personal information, including sensitive employee and customer data, shared from the organizations’ computer networks is available on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks. This, the FTC warned, could be used to commit identity theft or fraud. The notices went to both private and public entities, including … Continue reading Peer-To-Peer (P2P) File Sharing Data Breaches Lead to FTC Action
As we have discussed before, data breach notification is one of the most rapidly emerging areas of law. Good security incident procedures as well as effective training can help avoid the risk of data breach. (Sample data breach training). A case in point: Connecticut’s Attorney General has filed a civil action against Health Net of the Northeast … Continue reading Dealing with Data Breaches: Health Net Suit Highlights Need for Effective Security Incident Procedures and Training
Less than one month into 2010 the trend to address data security, destruction, and encryption has continued among state lawmakers. Specifically, Florida, Michigan, Kentucky, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and New York all have introduced, reintroduced, or amended legislation of this kind. The Florida and Michigan laws would amend personal data destruction rules for companies. The New York law … Continue reading Data Security, Destruction and Encryption Leads the Way for States in 2010
