Alberta, breach notice, British Columbia, Canada, Ontario, Quebec

Security Breach Notices for Canadian Data

By W. Scott Blackmer on March 19, 2010

Notice of significant security breaches involving personal information is recommended under federal Privacy Commissioner guidelines and legally required for custodians of personal health information in Ontario. Albert's new Bill 54, not yet in force, sets a new standard for mandatory notification to the provincial Privacy Commissioner, who can determine whether and how individuals must be notified.

agility, best practices, compliance, IAPP, information governance, IT, Law, legal defensibility, outsourcing, privacy professionals, risk, Security, security breach, technology, whitepaper

Privacy's Trajectory

By InfoLawGroup LLP on March 14, 2010

As many of our readers know, the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) will celebrate 10 years this Tuesday, March 16. In connection with that anniversary, the IAPP is releasing a whitepaper, "A Call For Agility: The Next-Generation Privacy Professional," tomorrow, March 15. I am honored that the IAPP has given me the opportunity to read and blog about the whitepaper in advance of its official release.

ABA, Cloud, E-Sign, ethics, privacy professionals, Red Flags Rule, RSA

Thoughts from the RSA Conference

By InfoLawGroup LLP on March 03, 2010

As the partners of InfoLawGroup make our way through the sensory overload of the RSA Conference this week, I am reminded (and feel guilty) that it has been a while since I posted here. I have good excuses - have simply been too busy with work - but after spending several days in the thought-provoking environment that is RSA, I had to break down and write something. A few observations, from a lawyer's perspective, based on some pervasive themes.

cloud computing, EU Directive, international data transfers, model contracts, outsourcing, standard contract clauses, standard contractual clauses, transborder data flows

EU Adopts New Standard Contract Clauses for Foreign Processors

By W. Scott Blackmer on February 08, 2010

The European Commission has announced a new set of standard contractual clauses to be used in agreements with processors located outside the EU / EEA. The new SCCs represent an effort to better ensure privacy protection when European personal data are passed on to subcontractors in business process outsourcing, cloud computing, and other contexts of successive data sharing.

201 CMR 17-00, AES, anonymity, behavioral advertising, breach notification, California, cloud computing, contracts, DPA, Eavesdropping, encryption, EU Data Protection Directive, GLBA, HIPAA, HITECH, IAPP, Kearney, Massachusetts, personally identifiable information, pii, RFID, social networking, spam, SSN, TCPA, telemarketing, text messages, UK ICO, VPPA

Celebrating Data Privacy from A to Z

By InfoLawGroup LLP on January 28, 2010

In honor of Data Privacy Day and its spirit of education, I thought it might be appropriate (and fun) to celebrate some (but certainly not all) of the A, B, Cs of Data Privacy. Would love to see your contributions, too!

creditors, deadline, extensions, FACTA, financial institutions, FTC, identity theft, June 1, prevention program, primer, Red Flags Rule

Is Your Organization's Red Flags Rule Identity Theft Prevention Program Ready for Primetime?

By InfoLawGroup LLP on January 18, 2010

As our readers know, the FTC, after four extensions of the deadline, currently intends to begin enforcing the Red Flags Rule with respect to organizations subject to its jurisdiction on June 1, 2010. In the meantime, the Red Flags Rule remains in effect as to all financial institutions and creditors (and has been subject to enforcement by the banking regulators since November 1, 2008). Although a recent decision of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, ABA v. FTC, brought lawyers outside the scope of the Rule, the Rule remains broad and covers a wide range of entities as "creditors." Creditors subject to the FTC's jurisdiction need to have their written Red Flags Rule Identity Theft Prevention Programs prepared, approved by the Board, and implemented by June 1. For more on the history and the requirements of the Rule, see my recent article, "The FACTA Red Flags Rule: A Primer," published in Bloomberg Law Reports - Risk & Compliance, reproduced here with the permission of Bloomberg.

agreements, breach notice, certification, compliance, confidentiality, contracts, incident response, indemnification, information security, insurance, liability, risk management, standards

Information Security Clauses and Certifications - Part 1

By W. Scott Blackmer on January 17, 2010

Service contracts that involve protected personal information should include provisions allocating responsibility for protecting that information and responding to security breaches. Increasingly, this means incorporating specific references to applicable laws and information security standards, and often certifications of conformance.

FTC, Leibowitz, online privacy, opt-in, opt-out, personal information, privacy, reasonable expectation, self-regulatory, Vladeck

Are We Living in a Post-Disclosure, Opt-In World?

By InfoLawGroup LLP on January 11, 2010

Today's New York Times Media Decoder Blog features an "on-the-record" discussion with Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz and Bureau of Consumer Protection chief David Vladeck. The question presented: "Has Internet Gone Beyond Privacy Policies?" The FTC (and Congress, for that matter) continue to signal that change may be imminent in the world of online privacy policies and traditional notions of opt-out consent.