I am not sure what the rush was to make the JFK assassination files available, but the perceived urgency caused Social Security numbers of individuals involved in the investigation to be released to the public. Although The...more
I was hanging out with my friend this weekend, both catching up on emails from a coffee shop. After a while, he turned to me. “Well sh*t. Looks like my social security number might be on the dark web.”...more
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
The FCC has significantly expanded telecommunications carriers’ data breach notification and reporting obligations. Telecommunications carriers, including Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, and telecommunications...more
A California-based lead generation company recently settled with the FTC for $1.5 million over alleged privacy violations. The FTC argued that the company deceptively acquired consumer personal information and improperly...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
Cyberliability insurance provider Beazley Insurance Company has analyzed its internal breach response data and determined that in its experience, there has been a thirty-seven percent (37%) increase in ransomware attacks this...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
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
Following the recent Equifax data breach wherein millions of consumers’ private information may have been compromised, it is increasingly clear that consumer-interfacing businesses need to, and in some cases are required to,...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
I have spent some time over the past few weeks concentrating on steps individuals can take to protect their privacy and identity. But how do you protect your child’s identity?...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
Katy Independent School District (ISD) was randomly audited by the IRS on August 5th. In order to conduct the audit, the IRS auditor had a flash drive with the names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers of...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
There is a significant nexus between data privacy and security and e-discovery that grows more pronounced as the volume of data generated multiplies exponentially and the ability of e-discovery tools to collect and process...more