On March 20, the U.S. House of Representatives passed House Resolution 7520, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, targeting companies that sell sensitive information to “foreign adversaries.” ...more
On January 1, 2023, Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act (CPDA) takes effect. Key features of the CPDA include expansive consumer privacy rights (right to access, right of rectification, right to delete, right to opt-out,...more
In McFarlane v. Altice USA, Inc., a recent decision out of the Southern District of New York, a class of plaintiffs successfully established standing and stated a plausible claim for breach of implied contract based on a data...more
With data breaches becoming a common event throughout the world, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has been undertaking a number of initiatives aimed at enhancing its security of taxpayer information and preventing the...more
Synthetic identity fraud (SIF) is a recent phenomenon that scammers have used to circumvent the increasing awareness of traditional identity fraud. Instead of stealing a real person’s identity as with traditional identity...more
The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) announced on November 5, 2019, that it allowed the Social Security numbers (SSNs) of 3,200 California drivers to be accessed by unauthorized individuals in other state and...more
The Security Summit, consisting of the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), state tax agencies, and private-sector tax industry officials, is encouraging tax professionals during the 2019 summer season to take some time to...more
Atrium Health and its vendor AccuDoc Solutions have released a joint announcement this week that AccuDoc’s database of 2.6 million billing records of Atrium Health’s patients has been compromised by a hacking incident....more
Schneider Electric recently issued a consumer warning that it mistakenly shipped to its customers USB drives that were infected with malware. Schneider Electric stated in its alert that “Schneider Electric has determined that...more
We all know that it is important to protect our social security number. But sometimes companies still try to use the last four digits of our social security numbers as identifiers or to verify identity in some way....more
The Vermont Attorney General (AG) recently announced that it has settled with SAManage USA, a business support services company, for failing to timely notify 660 Vermont residents that their names and Social Security numbers...more
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has released a report of the data breaches that have been reported to her office from 2012 until 2015. Although the California data breach notification law took effect in 2003,...more
A California federal judge has ruled that a former Uber driver who is suing Uber in a proposed class action case was unable to show that he suffers an immediate threat of identity theft and dismissed the driver’s first...more
As we head into the end of 2015, state legislators across the country continue to strengthen, update and, in some instances, broaden the scope of their respective state data breach notification laws. Specifically, many...more
Social Security numbers are one of the highest risk data elements known to mankind. A Social Security number in combination with a name and date of birth (which are publicly accessible) in the hands of a bad person can...more
The Social Security and Tax Number (“My Number”) System (the “System”) will go into effect in January 2016, and the government will start distributing My Numbers to all citizens in October 2015. The Act on the Use of Numbers...more
Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc., an electronic medical record service provider, recently disclosed a data breach affecting approximately 4 million individuals. Within days of the disclosure, Medical Informatics was hit...more
Responding to the recently disclosed Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) data breach, congressional leaders are demanding answers from the agency regarding its handling of confidential tax information. Senate Finance Committee...more
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released on Tuesday, May 26, 2015, news of a major data breach, estimated to have affected 100,000 U.S. households’ tax returns. The data was wrongfully obtained from an IRS application...more
sing it with me now…. Five Golden Rules…….(well, five new privacy laws/requirements) There are five significant new privacy laws/amendments that will be effective as of New Year’s Day — January 1, 2015 — and...more
California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on September 30, three amendments to California's privacy laws of which every business must be aware. The amendments to the Civil Code (i) significantly broaden the scope of...more