Since the start of the year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has brought actions against – and reached proposed settlements with – three business ventures engaged in the collection, use and sharing of certain consumer...more
A quick update on a new development with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. One of the concerns raised by users of ChatGPT is the ability of OpenAI to use queries for the training of the GPT model, and therefore potentially expose...more
ChatGPT has quickly become the talk of business, media and the Internet – reportedly, there were over 100 million monthly active users of the application just in January alone.
While there are many stories of the...more
The concept of the “metaverse” has garnered much press coverage of late, addressing such topics as the new appetite for metaverse investment opportunities, a recent virtual land boom, or just the promise of it all, where...more
12/3/2021
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Augmented Reality ,
Blockchain ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Privacy ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Digital Platforms ,
E-Commerce ,
Goods or Services ,
Information Technology ,
Innovative Technology ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Internet ,
Popular ,
Virtual Reality
On August 5, 2021, a proposed class action settlement was reached in the closely-watched privacy action against fintech services company Plaid Inc. (“Plaid”). The settlement features a $58 million settlement fund and certain...more
8/9/2021
/ Class Action ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financial Transactions ,
FinTech ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Popular ,
Settlement Agreements
Last week, the Italian data protection authority (the “GPDP”) opened an investigation after reports that a dataset allegedly containing data compiled from 500 million LinkedIn profiles and other websites was available for...more
In continuing its efforts to enforce its terms and policies against developers that engage in unauthorized scraping of user data, this week Facebook brought suit against two marketing analytics firms, BrandTotal Ltd...more
On April 30, 2020, the French data protection authority, the CNIL, published a guidance surrounding considerations behind what it calls “commercial prospecting,” meaning scraping publicly available website data to obtain...more
While Washington’s comprehensive data privacy bill (SB 6182) — inspired by California’s CCPA — died when legislators could not hammer out a compromise over enforcement mechanisms, the state legislature did reach agreement and...more
On January 31st, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai transmitted a letter in response to a prior inquiry from a number of House members regarding the status of the Commission’s investigation into reports that the major wireless carriers...more
Last week, Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Anna Eshoo sent a letter to FTC Chairman Joseph J. Simons urging the agency to investigate whether analytics firm Envestnet, Inc. (which operates...more
1/22/2020
/ Congressional Investigations & Hearings ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data-Sharing ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FTC Act ,
Gramm-Leach-Blilely Act ,
Personal Data ,
Popular ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
On January 7, 2019, the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a draft of a memorandum setting forth guidance to assist federal agencies in developing regulatory and non-regulatory approaches regarding...more
1/9/2020
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Privacy ,
Draft Guidance ,
Government Agencies ,
NIST ,
OMB ,
Privacy Laws ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Public Comment ,
Rulemaking Process
This week, the FTC entered into a proposed settlement with Unrollme Inc. (“Unrollme”), a free personal email management service that offers to assist consumers in managing the flood of subscription emails in their inboxes....more
8/12/2019
/ California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ,
Data Collection ,
Data Mining ,
Data Privacy ,
Email ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Market Research ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Privacy Policy ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices
In an important opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s ruling that plaintiffs in the ongoing Facebook biometric privacy class action have alleged a concrete injury-in-fact to confer Article III standing and that...more
8/12/2019
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Fingerprints ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Injury-in-Fact ,
Personal Data ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Social Media ,
Standing ,
Statutory Violations
As discussed in past posts about the long-running Facebook biometric privacy class action, users are challenging Facebook’s “Tag Suggestions” program, which scans for and identifies people in uploaded photographs for photo...more
6/1/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Class Certification ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Dormant Commerce Clause ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Photographs ,
Private Right of Action ,
Standing
There has been a lot of attention in the media lately with respect to the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica issue and its fall-out (including today’s coverage of the announcement that Facebook suspended almost 200 apps pending a...more
5/17/2018
/ Apple ,
Cambridge Analytica ,
Cybersecurity ,
Data Breach ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Facebook ,
Mobile Apps ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Privacy Concerns
This week, the District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed the Gullen putative class action asserting Illinois biometric privacy claims brought by “non-users” based on evidence that the social media site...more
4/6/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Photographs ,
Standing ,
Summary Judgment
This past week, a California district court again declined Facebook’s motion to dismiss an ongoing litigation involving claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 Ill. Comp Stat. 14/1 (“BIPA”),...more
3/5/2018
/ Article III ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Photographs ,
Spokeo v Robins ,
Standing ,
VPPA
We have been closely following the legal and legislative developments relating to biometric privacy, and in particular, the flow of litigation under the Illinois biometrics privacy law. It was interesting to see how the...more
Even though Washington passed its own biometric privacy law last month (HB 1493), and other states are currently debating their own bills, Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) is still the crux of biometric and...more
6/13/2017
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Fingerprints ,
Notice and Comment ,
Notice Requirements ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Supermarkets
We’ve closely followed the numerous biometric privacy disputes and legislative developments surrounding the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA), which precludes the unauthorized collection and storing of some...more
3/3/2017
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Google ,
Information Technology ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Photographs ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Social Media ,
Technology Sector
We’ve written extensively about the numerous lawsuits, dismissals and settlements surrounding the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The statute, generally speaking, prohibits an entity from collecting,...more
2/24/2017
/ Article III ,
Background Checks ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Retention ,
Data Security ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Parental Consent ,
Personal Data ,
Popular ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Privacy Concerns ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Retail Market ,
Retailers ,
Software ,
Standing ,
Technology ,
Technology Sector
Earlier this month, an Illinois state court approved a $1.5 million settlement in a class action against L.A. Tan Enterprises, Inc., operator (directly and through franchisees) of L.A. Tan tanning salons. The settlement...more
A New York district court opinion is the latest addition to our watch of ongoing VPPA-related disputes, a notable decision on the issue of what exactly is a disclosure of “personally identifiable information” (PII) under the...more
10/28/2015
/ Analytics ,
Anonymization ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Disclosure ,
Disney ,
Internet Streaming ,
Mobile Devices ,
Personally Identifiable Information ,
Popular ,
Roku ,
Third-Party ,
Video Privacy ,
VPPA ,
Young Lawyers
As discussed in a previous post on facial recognition technology, a putative class action has been filed against Facebook over the collection of “faceprints” for its online photo tagging function, Tag Suggestions. (See e.g.,...more
10/16/2015
/ Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Consent ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
Databases ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
Injunctions ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Personal Data ,
Photographs ,
Popular ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Shutterfly ,
Statutory Damages